SOUTHERN  BRAlMPu^ 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TSonm 

LIBRARY  ^' 

^S  ANGELES.  CALIF. 


THE     RETURN     OF 
CHRISTENDOM 


jH^^^ 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO    •    DAIXAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO..  Limited 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA 
l£ELBOURNB 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA.  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  RETURN  OF 
CHRISTENDOM 


A  GROUP  OF  CHURCHMEN 

WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION   BY 

BISHOP  GORE 

AND   AN    EPILOGUE    BY 

G.  K.  CHESTERTON 


48185 

Nrm  fork 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1922 

All  rightt  rtaerved 


COPTBIQHT,    1922, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
Set   up   and   printed.      Published    December,   1922. 


Press   of 
Hamilton   Printing   Company 

Albany,  N.  Y.,  U.  S.  A. 


5C  3  H 


NOTE 

*v;  Though  the  chapters  composing  this  book  have  been  In 
every  case  the  subject  of  careful  consultation  between  the 
writers  concerned,  and  are  in  a  real  sense  the  fruit  of 
their  collaboration,  the  authors  do  not  claim  that  their 
outlook  is  identical  in  every  detail,  and  responsibility  for 
statements  made  and  views  put  forward  in  each  chapter 


rests  with  the  contributor  of  that  chapter  alone. 


INTRODUCTION    TO    THE    AMERICAN 

EDITION 

At  a  moment  when  everything  has  been  shaken  that  can 
be  shaken  there  are  those,  honest  souls  they  are,  who  are 
asking  themselves  the  question,  Is  it  Christianity  that 
is  a  failure  or  merely  those  who  are  its  exponents  ?  Has 
Christianity  been  so  shaken  that  it  is  tottering  to  the 
fall  ?  Are  the  high  ideals  and  glorious  visions  of  twenty 
centuries  a  mere  Jack  O'lantern  mocking  us  as  our  feet 
flounder  in  the  morass  of  today's  confusion? 

With  sufficient  justification  we  might  answer  that  it 
is  Christianity,  and  therefore  Christ,  that  is  at  fault,  had 
Christianity  been  loyal  to  the  spiritual  and  moral  pre- 
cepts and  example  of  its  Founder  in  the  field  of  the 
world  for  a  continuous  period  in  the  past  by  the  masses 
of  the  population  with  the  result  as  we  see  it.  The  truth 
of  the  matter  is  that  the  great  principles  of  Christ  and 
His  Church  stand  out  in  bold  and  sad  relief  against  the 
lurid  history  of  the  last  decade,  unshaken  and  unshakable. 
At  the  very  instant  they  condemn  us  for  not  having  made 
them  the  active  motive  of  all  life,  they  beg  us  to  learn 
our  lesson  and,  as  never  before,  take  Christ  at  His 
word. 

"It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so ; 
That,  howsoe'er   I   stray  and  range, 
Whate'er  I  do,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That  if  I  slip.  Thou  dost  not  fall." 

It  would  be  unfair  for  me  to  quarrel  with  the  title  of 


viii  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 

this  volume  of  essays,  each  one  of  which  calls  for  a 
fearless  application  of  Christian  truth  to  modern  con- 
ditions, and  all  togetlier  look  with  courageous  hope  to 
the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  among  men — 
or,  if  you  please,  the  return  of  Christendom.  But  I 
find  myself  wondering  whether  we  can  have  a  return  of 
that  which  has  never  wholly  been.  On  the  other  hand 
the  idea  of  revival  or  return  is  sound  provided  it  does 
not  mean  a  recalling  into  being  of  the  naked  thought  or 
arrangement  or  scheme  of  the  past.  The  ideals  of  the 
past,  yes.  Whatever  returns  must  be  contingent  for  its 
work  on  motive  and  direction.  Its  form  must  be  its 
own — related  to  the  past  but  not  merely  a  revivified  past. 

It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  Christianity  that  its  highest 
reality  lies  in  the  future.  It  delves  into  the  past,  it  is 
true,  and  mines  its  jewels,  resetting  them  to  suit  the 
times.  But  its  eyes  are  on  the  unattained.  If  I  have 
read  these  essays  aright,  the  writers  have  been  actuated 
by  this  distinctively  Christian  spirit — the  forward  look. 
They  have  studied  the  past,  with  special  attention  to 
mediaeval  times,  and  recovered  for  us  separate  jewels 
from  different  centuries,  relating  them  to  one  another  in 
the  simple  setting  of  a  common  motive  and  a  common 
purpose.  It  is  for  us  to  live  not  an  incomplete  but  a 
catholic  life,  claiming  for  ourselves  and  our  day  all  the 
noble  characteristics,  the  mystic  beauty,  the  irresistible 
power  which  have  adorned  the  individual  Christian 
centuries  or  epochs  but  which  we  would  gather  into  one 
galaxy  of  glory  for  all  the  people  and  for  all  the  time. 
Then  is  real  Catholicity.  The  vicious  habit  of  referring 
everything  to  the  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth  Century 
is  the  antithesis  of  Catholicity. 

Lest  I  should  appear  to  underestimate  the  study  of  the 
past  on  which  this  book  is  built,  I  would  make  my  own 


AMERICAN  EDITION  ix 

those  famous  lines  of  Seneca^  upon  the  joy  and  power 
of  fellowship  with  all  the  world's  yesterdays.  "What- 
ever years  have  gone  before  us  are  to  be  counted  our 
property."  The  "noble  pioneers  in  high  thinking  were 
born  for  our  benefit  and  fashioned  their  lives  for  our 
sakes.  We  are  brought  to  consider  things  of  the  greatest 
worth  which  have  been  dug  up  from  darkness  into  day- 
light by  the  effort  of  others;  to  no  period  of  history  are 
we  forbidden  access,  and  we  are  admitted  everywhere. 
If  by  greatness  of  soul  we  may  pass  beyond  the  narrow 
confines  of  human  frailty,  we  have  unlimited  time 
through  which  we  may  course.  We  may  share  in  the 
thoughts  of  all  philosophers.  And  since  the  universe 
allows  us  to  go  into  partnership  with  all  the  ages,  why, 
in  this  tiny  and  fleeting  state  of  transition  should  we  not 
give  ourselves  whole  heartedly  to  the  things  which  are 
unbounded,  eternal,  and  to  be  shared  with  our 
betters  ?  .  .  .  Shall  we  not  say  that  men  are  engaged 
upon  real  duties  who  wish  to  be  on  the  most  intimate 
terms  with  the  thinkers  of  past  ages  ?  Every  one  of  these 
will  give  you  his  attention;  every  one  of  these  will  send 
you  away  happier  and  more  devoted;  no  one  of  them 
will  allow  you  to  depart  empty-handed  from  his  presence. 
They  can  be  found  by  night  or  by  day,  and  by  any  one 
who  wishes.  .  .  .  These  souls  will  show  you  the 
path  to  immortality  and  will  raise  you  to  heights  from 
which  no  one  is  cast  down.  .  .  .  Anything  will  be 
destroyed  by  the  flight  of  time ;  but  harm  can  never  come 
to  that  which  wisdom  has  hallowed." 

All  that  is  true  of  making  friends  with  the  individuals 
of  the  past  is  true  of  making  friends  with  the  Christen- 
dom of  the  past.    Each  of  our  writers  has  done  this,  some 

'  Ad.  Paul,  de  Brev.  Vit.   14f .  quoted  by  R.  M.  Gummere  in  his 
Seneca  The  Philosopher  and  His  Modern  Message. 


X  INTKODUCTION  TO  THE 

of  near,  some  of  distant  centuries.  Out  of  the  world's 
long  yesterday  they  bring  us  treasures  new  and  old.  One 
would  have  us  embrace  certain  ideals  and  achievements 
of  Medisevalism.  ''We  cannot,  we  would  not  if  we 
could,  'go  back  to  the  Middle  Ages',  but  it  is  from  the 
nobler  efforts  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  we  should  seek  to 
go  forward."  Another  finds  that  "in  essentials,  the 
faithful  of  the  Middle  Ages,  despite  their  failures  in 
practice,  possessed  a  rule  of  life  and  a  sense  of  beauty 
which  we  are  painfully  endeavoring  to  recover."  A  third 
writes :  "The  Mediaeval  Church,  by  its  doctrine  of  the 
two  polarities  of  God's  activity — the  State  and  the 
Church — secured  the  recognition  of  the  essentially  re- 
ligious character  of  the  economic  and  other  relations  of 
Society."  Then  comes  a  study  of  the  Mediaeval  Theory 
of  Social  Order,  the  most  striking  and  original  essay  in 
the  volume,  if  I  may  venture  on  a  comparison  which  is 
not  invidious  because  all  of  them  are  on  a  high  plane. 

The  balance  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  a  searching 
study  of  the  present  condition  of  industry  with  a  plea 
and  programme  for  its  humanization  and  Christianiza- 
tion,  of  property  and  its  moralization,  and  of  the  half 
truths  of  Marxism  which  enlighten  by  warning.  The 
closing  essay,  without  glossing  over  the  unlovely 
features  of  the  Church  today,  leaves  us  tingling  with 
hope  that  it  will  rise  to  a  full  realization  of  its  com- 
mission "to  claim  for  Christ  the  absolute  dominion  over 
the  whole  life  of  man"  to  the  end  that  "Christ  will  return 
to  reign  over  us  and  'the  Kingdom  of  the  world  will 
become  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ'  " 

We  must  study  the  past  and  face  the  future  in  terms 
of  ultimate  victory.  That  is  the  unvarying  practice  of 
Christ.  To  do  otherwise  is  to  be  vanquished  before  we 
move  to  the  attack.     There  is  much  courage,  and  much 


AMERICA:^  EDITION  xi 

suffering,  and  much  seeming  defeat  between  now  and 
the  day  of  triumph.  But  our  writers  are  leaders  in 
honest  and  fearless  thought  who  will  not  lack  a  worthy 
following  in  their  effort  to  bring  about  "the  Return  of 
Christendom." 

C.    H.   BRENT 

Buffalo,  N.  Y. 

Octave  of  All  Saints,  1922. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  AMERICAN   EDITION      vii 
C.   H.   BRENT 

INTRODUCTION xv 

BISHOP   GORE 

CHAPTER 

I.    THE    IDEA    OF    CHRISTENDOM    IN    RELATION 

TO  MODERN  SOCIETY  ....       1 

M.  B.   RECKITT,   M.A. 

II.     THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA       .  .  .  .29 

H.  H.   SLESSER 

III.  THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA   .  .     53 

Fr.    L.    S.    THORNTON,   M.A. 

IV.  THE  RETURN  OF  "THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD'/        .     79 

Rev.  p.  E.   T.   WIDDRINGTON 

V.    THE  MEDIEVAL  THEORY  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER     .   109" 
Rev.   a.   J.   CARLYLE,   D.Litt. 

VI.    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM  .  .  121 

A.  J.  PENTY 

VII.    THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY         .  .  147 

M.   B.   R£,CKITT,   M.A. 

VIII.    THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  .  .  .183 

Rev.  NILES  CARPENTER,  M.A.,  Ph.D. 

IX.    THE    KINGDOM    OF    GOD    AND    THE    CHURCH 

TO-DAY  .  .  .  .  .  .217 

Fr.  PAUL  B.  BULL 

EPILOGUE 245 

G.   K.  CHESTERTON 


INTRODUCTION 

This  volume  consists  of  essays  written  by  a  group  of 
men  who  hold  certain  principles  in  common,  and  who 
have  collaborated^  so  as  to  give  their  essays  a  certain 
manifest  continuity  and  unity  of  idea  and  aim.  I  shall  per- 
haps best  serve  the  purpose  of  this  introduction  if  I  en- 
deavour to  enumerate  and  describe  these  principles,  which 
they  hold  in  common,  and  some  consequent  conclusions. 
I.  They  are  all  Socialists^  in  a  general  sense,  that  is 
to  say,  they  are  all  at  one  in  believing  that  no  stable  or 
healthy  industrial  or  social  fabric  can  be  built  upon  the 
principle  of  Individualism,  or  is  consistent  with  the  asser- 
tion of  an  almost  unrestricted  Right  of  Private  Property. 
Accordingly,  they  hold  that  our  present  industrial  society 
rests  upon  a  rotten  foundation ;  and  that  what  is  needed 
to  remedy  the  manifest  "sickness"  of  our  "Aquisitive 
Society,"  is  something  much  more  than  particular  social 
reforms.  There  is  needed  the  substitution  of  a  true  idea 
or  principle  of  Society — that  is  of  Socialism  in  some 
sense — for  the  false.  What  they  ask  for  is  such  a  peace- 
ful and  gradual  revolution  as  can  only  come  about  if 
men's  minds  come  to  be  so  fully  possessed  with  a  certain 

*  Perhaps  I  ought  to  say  that  the  Fifth  Essay  (Dr.  Carlyle's)  has 
been  contributed,  so  to  speak,  from  outside,  and  that  he  should  not 
be  reckoned  as  belonging  to  the  group. 

*Dr.  Carpenter  prefers  to  be  called  a  "Co-operationist,"  while 
some  of  the  other  contributors  might  choose  to  describe  themselves 
as  "Distributionists."  None  would  accept  the  description  "Socialist" 
save  in  its  most  general  sense. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

set  of  ideas,  which  are  now  in  the  air,  as  that  they  shall 
gain  compelling  or  driving  power  in  practical  affairs, 

2.  But  as  a  basis  for  social  reconstruction  they  en- 
tirely repudiate  the  Marxian  materialism,  or  the  doctrine 
of  the  inevitable  Class  War  and  victory  of  the  prole- 
tariat. Human  affairs  are  not  governed  by  mechanical 
laws  and  do  not  move  towards  necessarily  determined 
conclusions.  These  writers  would  appeal  to  the  freedom 
of  the  human  spirit.  If  there  is  no  change  of  spirit 
among  men,  the  class  war  might  proceed  to  revolution 
and  to  the  victory  of  the  proletariat,  but  it  v/ould  not 
really  ameliorate  the  lot  of  men  or  give  them  liberty. 
It  would  only  substitute  a  bureaucratic  tyranny  for  a  plu- 
tocratic :  and  a  revolution  leading  to  disillusionments 
would  bring  reaction.  Moreover,  these  writers  would 
repudiate  the  ideal  of  Communism  and  the  older  ideal  of 
State  Socialism,  as  both  of  them  tending  to  bureaucracy 
and  tyranny.  They  demand  a  form  and  ideal  of  society 
which  shall  secure  for  the  individual  his  spiritual  liberty, 
and  such  rights  of  "property  for  use"  as  this  liberty  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  family  require. 

3.  They  feel  the  weakness  of  the  Labour  Movement  in 
general,  and  in  particular  in  Great  Britain,  owing  to  its 
lack  of  dominant  and  guiding  principles,  and  its  conse- 
quent incoherence  and  endless  tendency  to  internal  fac- 
tion and  division. 

4.  They  see  the  root  and  ground  of  the  ideas  of  jus- 
tice and  brotherhood  and  the  universal  duty  and  joy  of 
social  service  only  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  God,  as  it 
was  proclaimed  by  the  prophets  of  Israel  and  given  its 
completion  and  universality  in  Jesus  Christ;  and  as  it 
was  entrusted  to  the  Church  to  constitute  the  basis  of  its 
mission.  In  every  element  of  this  fundamental  doctrine 
— of  God,  of  the  Incarnation,  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  of  the 


IXTRODUCTIOK  xvii 

ultimate  victory  of  Christ,  of  tlie  life  eternal — they  see 
some  strong  guarantee,  which  exists  nowhere  else,  for 
tlie  ideas  and  principles  which  real  social  recovery  con- 
stantly postulates.  Nor  would  tliey  be  content  with  any 
presentation  of  religion  as  a  mere  system  of  doctrine. 
They  see  the  visibly  organized  Church  with  its  sacra- 
mental fellowship  as  belonging  to  the  essence  of  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Incarnation.  This  organized  Church  is  the 
Body  of  Christ.  It  is  His  organ  and  instrument  for 
action  in  the  world.  It  is  commissioned  not  only  to  pro- 
claim a  trutli  but  to  live  a  social  life.  It  exists  not  only 
to  teach  men  the  way,  but  to  show  it  embodied  before 
their  eyes.  In  a  word,  these  writers  are  both  Christians 
and  Catholics. 

Thus  (5)  they  do  not  share  the  current  fear  of  dogma 
in  religion.  I  suppose  tliey  would  admit  that  the  dog- 
matic spirit  may  become  excessive  and  tyrannical,  and 
that  the  dogma-tic  authority  needs  the  constant  challenge 
of  reason.  But  they  perceive  both  that  Christianity  is  noth- 
ing if  not  dogmatic — that  is,  that  it  rests  essentially  upon 
a  message  proclaimed  to  be  divine — and  that  every  con- 
tinuous human  society,  if  it  is  to  maintain  any  moral 
ideal,  must  rest  upon  a  dogmatic  basis,  that  is  to  say,  it 
must  be  able  to  appeal  to  a  certain  groundwork  of  princi- 
ples which  are  taken  for  granted. 

But  (6),  they  do  not  disguise  from  themselves  the  de- 
plorable failure  of  tlie  Church  to  exhibit  the  reality  of 
brotherhood  and  to  stand  for  its  principles  of  justice  and 
love.  If  one  looks  back  to  tlie  early  centuries  one  sees, 
indeed,  brotherhood  really  taught  and  really  lived.  It 
was  this  exhibition  of  brotherhood  that  won  the  rever- 
ence of  the  world  in  spite  of  its  prejudice  against  the 
Christians.  And  through  all  the  period  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  though  it  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to  conceal  from  our- 


xviii  IIs^TRODUCTIOK 

selves  the  very  dark  aspects  of  mediaeval  practice,  yet  the 
Church  held  Europe  in  some  real  recognition  of  a  fellow- 
ship, at  once  supernatural  and  super-national,  to  which  all 
men  and  nations  belonged  or  should  belong,  and  in  which 
all  men  were  bound  to  justice  and  to  the  recognition  of 
their  spiritual  equality  before  God.  But  since  the  Refor- 
mation broke  up  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church,  and  the 
spirit  of  individualism  both  in  the  churches  of  the 
Reformation  and  in  the  Catholic  church  obscured  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  made  the 
Church  appear  as  little  else  than  a  piece  of  spiritual 
machinery  for  saving  the  individual  soul  for  another 
world,  its  social  function  throughout  Europe  has  been 
almost  forgotten.  The  fabric  of  Industrialism  was  built 
up  in  almost  all  European  countries  on  a  basis  manifestly 
anti-Christian,  almost  without  remonstrance  from  the 
Church.  Now  the  fabric  of  Industrialism  seeems  to  be 
crumbling  by  its  own  inherent  rottenness,  and  the  cry  for 
reconstruction  is  heard  in  all  directions,  but  the  princi- 
ples on  which  alone  reconstruction  can  be  based  and  the 
spiritual  force  of  which  alone  it  can  be  accomplished 
seem  to  be  lacking.  So  it  is  that  men  of  all  kinds,  how- 
ever much  alienated  from  "institutional  religion"  are 
looking,  pathetically  enough,  towards  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  asking.  In  very  varied  tones  of  voice,  what  it 
can  do  for  them  in  the  Name  of  its  Master ;  and  mean- 
while there  are  signs  that  the  Church  is  waking  from  a 
long  sleep  and  beginning  to  understand  again  what  it 
means  to  pray  constantly  "Thy  Kingdom  come  on  earth." 
I  detect  differences  amongst  these  writers,  but  if  I  have 
read  the  essays  aright,  I  seem  to  see  this  body  of  common 
principles  and  conclusions  animating  them  all,  and  lead- 
ing them  to  make  a  double  appeal,  first  to  the  Church  to 
take  its  principles  seriously  and  to  "discern  the  signs  of 


INTRODUCTIOlSr  xix 

the  times,"  and  secondly,  to  the  democracy  to  consider 
whether  it  be  not  true  that  there  is  no  security  for  the 
principles  to  which  it  is  blindly  appealing,  and  no  real 
hope  of  social  salvation,  save  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth,  the  Son  of  God. 

It  is  because  the  point  of  view  of  these  writers,  and  the 
principles  on  which  their  point  of  view  is  based,  so  ur- 
gently need  presentation  to  the  bewildered  world  of  to- 
day, and  are  in  themselves  so  profoundly  worthy  of  con- 
sideration, that  I  have  accepted  the  undeserved  honour 
which  they  have  offered  me  of  introducing  these  essays 
to  the  public. 

They  seem  to  me  to  make  an  arresting  appeal.  Obvi- 
ously they  intend  to  be  provocative  and  challenging,  and 
make  no  claim  to  completeness  of  treatment.  They 
would  wish  me,  I  think,  to  call  attention  to  this :  and  I  will 
give  some  instances  of  omission. 

There  is  almost  nothing  about  the  international  prob- 
lem. Yet  obviously  it  is  impossible  to  deal  effectively 
with  social  reconstruction  or  with  industrial  problems 
except  on  an  international  basis :  and  obviously  we  cannot 
even  begin  to  think  about  the  Church  without  recogniz- 
ing that  it  is  essentially  an  international  or  supernational 
society.  These  writers  assure  me  tliat  they  are  not  blind 
to  such  considerations  or  lacking  in  zeal  to  emphasize 
them.  Only  it  did  not  seem  to  be  practicable  to  deal 
with  them  in  these  essays.  Again,  it  is  obvious  that 
essays  might  have  been  written  on  the  realization  of  the 
idea  of  brotherhood  in  the  early  Church,  and  on  the  sys- 
tem and  character  of  the  mediaeval  Church,  and  on  the 
connection  between  the  diffusion  of  the  Reformation  doc- 
trines and  the  rise  of  Modern  Industrialism.  But  these 
topics  have  been  thoroughly  treated  or  are  being  treated 
elsewhere. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

Once  more  the  question  may  be  asked  these  writers, 
What  in  fact  is  the  system  and  kind  of  industrial  and 
economic  reconstruction  which  you  adumbrate?  You 
reject,  it  appears,  Marxism,  Communism,  and  the  older 
form  of  State  Socialism.  What  is  it  then  that  you  con- 
template? There  are  hints  given  by  several  of  the 
writers  pointing  towards  Guild  Socialism  as  the  goal  of 
their  efforts.  If  I  may  speak  on  such  a  subject,  though 
I  am  least  of  all  an  authority  on  economics,  the  advocates 
of  Guild  Socialism  seem  to  me  to  have  yet  a  great  deal  of 
thinking  to  do  before  they  can  claim  that  Guild  Social- 
ism is  a  working  proposal.  And  plainly  in  the  book  it  is 
barely  hinted  at  and  not  definitely  proposed.  That  again 
is  an  omission.  But  books  are  of  different  kinds.  There 
are  book  claiming  to  be  comprehensive,  systematic  and 
complete.  There  are  others  which  set  out  to  be  stimu- 
lating and  suggestive.  And  the  latter  have  as  real  a 
value  as  the  former.  And  it  is  because,  in  the  latter  cate- 
gory, these  essays  seem  to  me  to  be  forcible  and  appeal- 
ing, that  I  commend  them  to  the  public. 

CHARLES  GORE. 


THE   IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 
IN  RELATION   TO  MODERN   SOCIETY 

BY 

MAURICE    B.    RECKITT,   M.A. 

Sometime  Editor  of  The  Church  Socialist 


THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 


SYNOPSIS 

I.  In  the  world  of  to-day  the  idea  of  Christendom  is  obliterated : 
it  is  even  absent  from  the  teaching  of  the  Church. 

It  has  been  rendered  incomprehensible  by 

1.  the  subjection  of  the  community  to  capitalist  Industrialism, 

2.  the  distortion  of  property  by  plutocracy. 

These  processes  are  not  fortuitous  in  their  origin ;  they  arose 
because  the  mediaeval  standards  of  Vocation  and  Fraternity  had 
been  destroyed. 

Processes   of  their  decay  indicated. 

Industrialism  testifies  "sacramentally"  to  the  moral  hideousness 
of  capitalism. 

Plutocracy  degrades  property  from  a  means  of  livelihood  and 
service  into  an  instrument  of  avarice. 

The  worship  of  gain  becomes  a  religion ;  its  denial  and  frustration 
of  Christian   ideals  and  claims. 

II.  The  Church,  however,  has  not  yet  revealed  herself  as  the 
enemy  of  plutocracy. 

But  the  opportunity  to  do  so  may  not  much  longer  remain  open 
to  her ;  for  the  capitalist  system  is  threatening  to  collapse  from  its 
inherent  rottenness. 

The  War — and  the  seeming  inevitability  of  further  world-wars — 
has  shattered  the  mj^th  of  a  beneficient  Progress ;  shattered  the 
stability  of  international  capitalism ;  shattered  the  belief  in  the 
purely  political  and  disinterested  character  of  the  State  by  disclosing 
the  interdependence  of  plutocracy  and  State-power. 

All  these  effects  of  the  War  have  been  confirmed  by  the  nature  of 
the  "Peace." 

Finally,  the  result  has  been  shattering  to  the  complacency  of 
thousands :  this  is  not  necessarily  a  bad  thing,  and  may  even  prove 
a  unique  opportunity.  Since  if  plutocracy's  dominion  holds  so  little 
promise,  an  alternative  to  it  must  be  sought  out  and  pursued. 

Hence  men  will  turn  naturally  to  those  who  already  challenge 
capitalism — the  forces  of  "Labour." 

III.  The  stability  of  capitalism  is  not  only  impaired  by  its  inherent 
rottenness  and  its  loss  of  prestige,  but  for  the  further  reason  that 
the  workers  are  increasingly  organizing  to  transcend  the  status  to 
which  it  condemns  them. 

In  view  of  Labour's  resistance  to  it,  capitalism  has  no  future.  Yet 
Labour,  while  strengthening  its  resistance,  is  bewildered   and  con- 


IN  KELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY        3 

fused  by  the  possibilities  to  which  its  successful  opposition  points. 

It  is  so  because  it  lacks  any  constructive  Idea  adequate  to 
embody  and  achieve  its  aspirations,  hence  it  fears  to  iind  itself  baffled 
by  the  very  completeness  of  its  opportunity. 

Its  categories  of  thought  and  its  spiritual  values  are  fatally 
entangled  with  the  ideology  of  capitalist  society:  this  is  true  of  both 
its  reformist  and  revolutionary  sections.  Its  intellectual  subservience 
to  the  assumptions  of  a  profiteering  "economic  science"  render  it 
incapable  of  developing  a  constructive   programme. 

Yet  the  Labour  movement  is  something  we  cannot  disregard  and 
of  which  we  must  never  despair.     For  with  all  its  limitations  it  is 

1.  A  reply  to  the  pretensions  of  plutocracy; 

2.  A  real  democracy; 

3.  Potentially,  an  engine  of  emancipation. 

IV.  The  Labour  Movement  is  not,  however,  a  co-ordinated  whole. 
And  the  emergence  of  Bolshevism  has  accentuated  and  defined  a 
sharp  cleavage  between  "Labourism"  and  Communism. 

Though  it  may  be  at  present  inevitable  that  the  workers  should 
choose  between  these  two  sections,  the  choice  is  really  one  between 
two  evils,  for  neither  possess  a  true  unifying  principle.  The 
official  Labour  formula  of  "workers  by  hand  and  brain,"  though 
useful  for  some  immediate  purposes,  is  inadequate. 

1.  Its  classification  is  quite  unreal. 

2.  It  suggests  dangers  of  perpetuating  social  caste. 

3.  It  implies  the  acceptance  of  capitalist  criteria  as  to  what  consti- 

tutes socially  valuable  work. 

Fatal  consequence  of  this.  The  alliance  projected  by  official 
Labour  is  a  political  unification  based  on  a  common  antagonism. 

It  does  not  promise  any  secure  basis  for  economic  achievement  or 
moral  unity. 

The  Labour  programme  is  still  quite  inadequate,  and  its  task 
wrongly  envisaged.  "Nationalization,"  "Politicalism,"  the  "Leisure 
State,"  enclose  its  horizon ;  and  its  activities  are  dissipated  in  indus- 
trial agitations  within  the  "vicious  circle"  of  capitalism. 

V.  Bolshevism  attempts  to  beat  capitalism  at  its  own  game  by 
mastering  and  improving  upon   capitalist  methods. 

Its  unifying  principle  is  the  "proletariat" ;  and  the  basis  of  its 
social  policy  proletarian  dictatorship. 

The  conception  of  "proletarianism" :  its  false  application  of 
Equality;    its   subjection   of  Liberty   and  Fraternity. 

"The  circumference  of  capitalist  organization  becomes  the  centre 
of  the  new  society." 

A  free  social  order  cannot  be  evolved  from  this  inhuman  distor- 
tion. 


4  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

But  the  vital  objections  to  Bolshevism  do  not  depend  upon  politi- 
cal considerations ;  rather  do  they  arise  from  its  exclusively  mater- 
ialistic interpretation  of  the  governing  factors  in  society  past  and 
present. 

Illustrations  of  this  in — 

1.  The  Marxian  view  of  History. 

2.  The   idea   of    "proletarian   culture"    with   its   glorification   of 

the  machine.     "Cultural  dictatorship." 

3.  The  attempt  to  find  in  psychology  a  basis  for  the  dictatorship 

of  "eflficiency,"  and  a  justification  for  the  "sweeping  away 
of    democratic    lumber"    in    the   name   of    a   "sociological 
Calvinism." 
The  "new  world"  of  Communism  would  be  founded  on  the  old 
values  of  plutocracy. 

VI.  The  limitations  of  the  Socialist  idea. 

Dangers  of  its  inelasticity  illustrated  by  the  failure  to  draw 
practical  consequences  from  the  moral  distinction  between  "interest" 
and  "profits." 

Yet  the  primary  need  of  the  workers'  crusade  is  not  any  practical 
programme  but  the  inspiration  of  an  all-sufficing  Idea.  Only  the 
conception  of  Christendom  can  supply  this :  in  it  men  would  find  not 
only  an  ideal  for  the  whole  social  order,  but  one  which  would  restore 
to  the  individual  the  conviction  of  Vocation  and  a  personal  activity 
that  could  be  oflfered  to  the  glory  of  God.  This  ecclesiasticism  can 
never  supply  within  an  antagonistic  world  order. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  society  must  "go  forward  from  the  Middle 
Ages,"  before  men  had  proved  unworthy  of  the  ideal  of  Christendom. 

This  ideal  cannot  be  immediately  recovered;  nor  after  centuries 
of  social  apostasy  can  the  full  implications  of  the  Faith  be  made 
visible  to  the  many  while  it  is  preached  to  them  in  theological  forms. 

But  by  the  construction  of  a  new  social  order,  built  as  a  clear 
challenge  to  plutocracy,  an  arena  would  be  gradually  created  in 
which  all  men  could  come  to  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  to  which  their  efforts  were  making  an  infinitesimal,  but  vital, 
contribution. 


m  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM   IN   RELATION 
TO  MODERN  SOCIETY 


If  we  were  to  ask  what  form  of  words  came  nearest  to 
uniting  those  scattered  and  sundered  bodies  of  men  and 
women,  who  found  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  Christ  a 
revelation  of  the  Divine  purpose  for  the  world,  we  should 
discover  them  in  phrases  which  composed  something 
that  was  neither  a  creed  nor  a  prayer  only,  but  essen- 
tially both.  The  Lord's  Prayer  is  robbed  of  its  great 
intention  if  it  is  used  only  as  a  string  of  individual  peti- 
tions for  the  devout :  it  is  the  cry — and  best  of  all  the  com- 
mon cry — of  souls  who  are  citizens  of  the  Lord's  King- 
dom. Yet  a  million  times  a  day  its  clauses  are  framed  by 
Christian  men  and  women  for  whom  some  at  least  of  them 
can  have  no  immediate  practical  significance  whatever. 
That  God's  Kingdom  should  come  in  order  that  His  Will 
might  be  done  in  earth  thereby,  so  that  even  here  men 
might  breathe  in  human  society  the  breath  of  heaven — for 
this  is  the  Christian  bidden  to  pray,  even  before  he  speaks 
of  his  daily  bread.  What  can  those  words  mean  to  those 
whose  lives  show  them  nothing  but  a  morass  of  "bus- 
iness" or  a  wilderness  of  industrialism,  equally  surren- 
dered to  the  dominion  of  plutocracy?  In  the  world  of 
to-day  the  idea  of  Christendom  is  not  even  repudiated — 


6  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

it  is  obliterated.  It  is  not  proclaimed  in  the  market- 
place to  inspire  the  faint  or  to  confound  the  proud ;  it  is 
still  more  fatally  and  strangely  absent  from  our  Churches, 
so  that  the  Christian  Faith,  while  it  may  remain  a  solace 
to  the  weak,  seldom  reveals  itself  as  a  challenge  to  the 
strong. 

The  subjection  of  the  community  to  capitalist  indus- 
trialism and  the  distortion  of  property  by  plutocracy  have 
made  the  very  conception  of  Christendom  not  only  un- 
realizable, but  for  the  majority  of  men  to-day  even  incom- 
prehensible. They  are  not,  as  many  seem  to  imagine, 
processes  which  have  come  about  fortuitously,  or  for  rea- 
sons which  were  beyond  the  power  of  society  to  control. 
They  arose  because,  with  the  decay  of  the  great  mediaeval 
standards  of  vocation  and  fraternity,  and  the  consequent 
corruption  of  the  social  institutions  founded  upon  them, 
nothing  remained  to  preserve  the  purpose  of  society  as  the 
glorification  of  God.  Society — a  harmony  of  interwoven 
purposes,  communally  organized — gave  place  to  the  State, 
with  its  monopoly  of  power  for  the  glorification  of  its 
rulers,  till  the  heresies  of  individualism  came  to  take  their 
intellectual  vengeance  for  the  suppressed  truth  of  the 
claims  of  human  personality.  The  cry  went  forth  for 
freedom,  economic  no  less  than  political ;  but  it  was  a  free- 
dom conceived  not  as  a  social  means,  but  as  a  personal 
end,  an  "absolute  value,"  an  opportunity  for  the  glorifica- 
tion of  man — or,  to  be  more  precise,  for  the  glorification 
of  a  certain  kind  of  man.  For  it  was  freedom  to  excel 
each  other  without  restraint  that  men  were  in  fact  claim- 
ing, not  a  freedom  to  contribute  to  any  common  purpose ; 
and  this  precisely  at  a  time  when  the  opportunity  of  the 
energetic  and  the  avaricious  was  being  almost  miracu- 
lously enlarged  by  discoveries  which  offered  to  such  men, 
not  only  new  powers  over  natural  resources,  but  new  and 


IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY        7 

terrible  tyrannies  over  their  fellows.  The  Industrial 
Revolution — the  most  ruthless  of  all  revolutions — carried 
its  devastations  across  a  society  that  had  lost  all  traces  of 
the  old  defences  of  Vocation  and  Fraternity,  which  it  is 
only  now  attempting  painfully  to  restore  in  their  secular 
forms  of  Function  and  Solidarity. 

Industrialism  could  never  have  taken  the  hideous  forms 
it  has  done  if  mechanical  discovery  had  developed  in  a 
society  founded  on  free  associations  and  corporate  ideals. 
As  one  travels  through  some  "black  country,"  or  slum- 
begirt  factory  land,  wherein  what  we  count  as  wealth  is 
distilled  (though  scarcely  shared),  the  very  surroundings 
seem  to  testify,  as  it  were  sacramentally,  to  the  moral 
impossibility  of  plutocracy;  we  look  upon  the  outward  and 
visible  signs  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  disgrace.  Nor  is 
it  only  the  processes  of  industry,  or  the  status  of  its  poor 
prisoners,  that  the  triumph  of  plutocracy  has  distorted ; 
it  has  turned  property  from  an  institution  contributing  to 
social  health  into  a  dangerous  disease,  by  transforming 
the  deadly  sin  of  avarice  into  the  haughty  virtue  of  "enter- 
prise." For  property  has  sunk  from  being  a  means  whereby 
a  livelihood  was  made  in  the  service  of  society,  into  an 
instrument  whereby  money  and  power  are  amassed  by  the 
exploitation  of  society  and  the  bulk  of  those  who  work. 
Hence  "the  degradation  of  the  worker  follows  inevitably 
from  the  refusal  of  men  to  give  the  purpose  of  industry 
the  first  place  in  their  thought  of  it."^ 

Into  a  social  order  so  compounded  how  can  God's 
Kingdom  come  ?  By  what  means  even  can  the  very  idea 
of  Christendom  return?  Plutocracy  (and  the  capitalist 
fabric  through  which  it  operates)  does  not  merely  consti- 
tute a  force  hostile  to  religion  :  it  is  a  religion.^    When  we 

*  The  Sickness  of  an  Acquisitive  Society,  by  R.  H.  Tawney,  p.  20. 

*  Our  holidays  are  not  fixed  by  Saints'  days  or  to  commemorate 


8  THE  IDEA  OF  CHKISTENDOM 

ask  at  the  death  of  its  great  devotees  how  much  they 
died  worth,  we  are  inquiring  (and  often  appropriately 
enough)  of  nothing  else  about  them  than  the  amount  of 
financial  power  they  had  contrived  to  obtain.  Nor  is  it 
at  death  only  that  this  religion  enforces  its  claims,  nor  by 
its  elect  exclusively  that  it  demands  to  be  acknowledged. 
It  disputes  with  the  Church  of  Christ  for  the  destiny  of 
its  children.  At  the  moment  when  the  boy  (or  girl)  in  a 
working-class  parish  is  being  urged  to  make  recognition 
of  the  tremendous  claims  made  for  him  at  his  baptism, 
he  is  going  forth  into  a  world  which  by  every  manifesta- 
tion of  its  public  life  promptly  denies  and  frustrates  every 
one  of  them,  and  makes  plain  his  fate  as  a  member  of  the 
proletariat,  the  child  of  Mammon  and  the  inheritor  (if  he 
lives  long  enough)  of  nothing  but  the  servile  dole  of  an 
old-age  pension.  How  can  the  priest  bid  the  wage-slave 
commend  his  vocation  to  God,  or  serve  faithfully  a  Fra- 
ternity in  which  he  has  neither  status  nor  honour?  He 
cannot  find  these  things  in  his  work :  but  till  he  can  do  so, 
the  Church  which  sends  him  forth  can  never  rightly  be 
other  than  a  foe  to  the  social  order  which  so  tragically 
engulfs  him. 

II 

The  Church,  however,  has  still  to  reveal  herself  as  the 
enemy  of  plutocracy,  and  it  is  only  with  the  recovery  of 
the  ideal  of  Christendom  that  she  will  be  able  to  stand 
forth  with  an  ideal  worthy  of  her  mission  to  the  world 
she  is  called  to  redeem.  But  the  opportunity  is  one  that 
may  not  remain  open  much  longer.  The  capitalist  sys- 
tem, in  which  plutocracy's  dominion  is  embodied,  has  for 

events  from  the  (truly)  rich  part  of  our  history,  but  they  are  bank 
hohdays.  The  closing  of  our  banks  is  the  one  signal  that  for  twenty- 
four  hours  we  are  free."  The  Camel  and  the  Needle's  Eye,  by  A. 
Ponsonby,  p.  30. 


IN  KELATION  TO  MODEKN  SOCIETY        9 

long  been  challenged,  more  or  less  ineffectively,  by  those 
whom  it  exploits ;  but  it  is  not  only,  nor  even  mainly,  for 
this  reason  that  its  control  over  society  is  breaking  down. 
It  is  threatening  to  crumble  because  of  its  own  essential 
instability,  and  because — to  use  the  old  political  phrase  in 
a  far  more  crucial  connection — it  is  "losing  the  confidence 
of  the  country."  These  tendencies,  discernible  a  dozen 
years  ago,  have  been  enormously  accelerated  by  the  War, 
the  more  vital  effects  of  which  are  only  gradually  be- 
coming obvious.  And  the  more  obvious  they  become,  the 
more  shattering  we  perceive  them  to  be.  In  the  first  place 
the  War  has  shattered  the  myth  of  a  beneficent  and 
almost  inevitable  Progress,  on  which  the  reformers  of 
nearly  every  school  had  previously  founded  their  faith. 
To  those  who  look  deep  enough — and  there  are  many 
already  who  have  done  so — it  has  become  clear  that  the 
whole  of  our  interdependent  civilization  is  exposed  to 
the  liability  of  war  by  the  very  nature  of  the  economic 
system  which  so  precariously  binds  it  together.  Some 
even  are  found  to  declare  that  the  clash  of  expanding 
and  competing  plutocracies,  in  desperate  quest  of  that- 
"effective  demand"  which  their  financial  operations  re- 
sult only  in  extinguishing  in  their  home  markets,  will 
be  hurled  forward  into  further  conflagrations,  for  which 
their  scientific  and  mechanical  "progress"  equips  them 
each  year  more  hideously.  It  is  no  "far-off  divine 
event,"  as  the  Victorians  believed,  but  rather  the  imminent 
and  hellish  menace  of  successive  world-wars  to  which 
the  whole  capitalist  creation  moves. 

Progress,  even  in  the  servile  forms  in  which  the 
Liberal  optimists  of  yesterday  conceived  it,  demands  in- 
ternational peace,  and  not  peace  only,  but  international 
stability.  That  stability  which — so  far  as  it  then  existed 
— the   War  shattered,   the   formal   and   nominal   peace 


10  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

succeeding  it  has  not  restored.  Capitalist  industrialism 
has  lost  every  veneer  of  stability;  its  cosmopolitan  fab- 
ric is  everywhere  cracking,  and  has  at  many  points  al- 
together collapsed.  The  foreign  exchanges  and  world 
markets  appear  irremediably  dislocated :  their  recovery 
seems  impossible,  since  what  the  recklessness  of  Pots- 
dam began,  the  recklessness  of  Versailles  would  appear 
to  have  confirmed.  The  Europe  of  1914  may  have  been 
a  vulgar  mansion,  none  too  securely  founded,  and  in  a 
style  little  to  our  taste,  but  its  owners  at  least  succeeded 
in  keeping  the  wolf  from  the  door.  To-day  the  ravenous 
animal  is  invited  to  ransack  its  dilapidated  basements, 
while  what  is  left  of  the  family  seeks  desperately  to 
imitate  its  old  prosperity  in  a  few  rooms  on  the  upper 
floor. 

When  the  hope  of  Progress  and  the  assurance  of  sta- 
bility are  shattered,  what  remains  of  the  beliefs  by  which 
men  were  sustained  amid  the  doubts  and  difficulties  of 
pre-war  days  ?  Little  enough  perhaps ;  but  while  men 
believed  in  the  purely  political  and  essentially  disinter- 
ested character  of  the  State,  and  of  the  Government 
through  which  its  powers  were  administered  in  the  com- 
mon interest,  they  felt  their  feet  on  solid  ground.  The 
State,  at  any  rate,  men  felt,  did  stand  for  the  common 
good.  State  officers  could  be  trusted  to  act  impartially; 
by  State  action  social  change  could  be  achieved ;  and  the 
influence  of  wealth  or  commercialism  would  be  power- 
less to  frustrate  or  distort  any  political  decision-  It 
would  be  too  much  to  say  that  this  creed  has  been  shat- 
tered, but  it  has  certainly  been  undermined  by  the  politi- 
cal tendencies  of  the  last  few  years,  which  have  revealed 
to  many,  who  never  before  perceived  it,  the  interdepen- 
dence of  plutocracy  and  State  power.  It  is  more  than 
seventy  years  ago  that  the  Communist  Manifesto  de- 


i:n'  eelation  to  modern  society     ii 

clared  tlie  State  to  be  essentially  "but  an  executive  com- 
mittee for  the  administering  the  affairs  of  the  whole 
bourgeoisie."  The  description  is — at  the  least — a  mis- 
leading one,  and  however  true,  it  was  at  no  time  the 
whole  truth ;  but  it  has  never  come  to  being  so  near  the 
whole  truth  in  England  as  is  the  case  to-day.^  The  sus- 
picion of  this  is  steadily  gaining  ground,  and  under  its 
shadow  many  for  whom  the  State  and  its  governors 
represented  an  authority  which  they  felt  tliey  could  safely 
revere  without  danger  of  superstition,  find  themselves 
dismayed  and  at  a  loss  whither  to  turn  for  the  recovery  of 
that  sense  of  security  without  which  men  fall  victims  to 
social  panic  or  the  apathy  of  despair. 

These  effects  of  the  War — and  of  the  Peace — ^have 
been  shattering  indeed ;  shattering  to  the  complacency  of 
thousands  who  face  "the  new  world  after  the  War"  with 
disillusion  and  apprehension,  feeling  it  to  be  set  upon 
shifting  sands.  That  the  complacency  of  our  people 
should  be  shattered  is  by  no  means  in  itself  a  bad  thing; 
indeed  it  may  prove  itself  the  very  thing  for  which  the 
situation  is  calling — the  conviction  of  social  sin,  or  at 
least  of  social  failure,  which  may  lead  on  to  new  social 
values.^  People  are  feeling,  as  they  have  never  felt  for 
many  centuries,  that  nothing  is  too  bad  to  happen :  it  Is 
the  urgent  and  vital  task  of  those  who  lift  their  voice  to- 
day to  make  people  feel  that  if  they  do  but  will  it  and 

^Any  reader  who  may  be  interested  to  discover  what  is  the  view 
of  the  present  writer  as  to  the  true  role  of  the  State,  will  find  that 
view  set  out  in  The  Meaning  of  National  Guilds  (1920  edition), 
chapter  vii. 

'  At  the  same  time,  the  writer  has  no  wish  to  minimize  the  reality 
of  the  danger,  which  such  disillusion  as  men  have  experienced 
certainly  creates,  in  spreading  so  great  a  degree  of  apathy,  and  even 
despair,  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  mobilize  their  enthusiasm  and 
activity  for  any  effort  towards  social  change. 


12  THE  IDEA  OF  CHKISTENDOM 

work  for  it,  nothing  is  too  good  to  happen.  There  was 
never  a  crisis  that  was  not  also  an  opportunity-  The  very 
fact  that  men  no  longer  accept — as  till  lately  they  did 
almost  unanimously  accept — the  belief  that  plutocracy 
is  in  the  nature  of  things,  in  itself  offers  a  great  oppor- 
tunity; for  it  leads  them  to  reflect  that  if  its  further 
developmicnt  is  not  inevitable,  an  alternative  can  be  found 
and  pursued — and,  what  is  niore,  to  suspect  that  it  must 
be  if  society  is  not  to  fall  into  dissolution.  Where  can 
they  turn  but  to  those  whose  challenge  to  plutocracy  has 
been  already  uttered;  to  the  forces  of  "Labour,"  who 
speak  already  of  a  "new  social  order,"  though  tangled  so 
closely  in  the  meshes  of  the  old  one?  On  those  forces, 
then,  will  fall  first  the  weight  of  this  great  opportunity : 
and  all  who  have  the  courage  to  prepare  for  cliange  must 
ask  whether  Labour  has  the  true  values  and  unifying 
principles  which  alone  can  make  it  great  enough  for  its 
task. 

Ill 

AVe  have  already  seen  the  crisis  to  v^-hich  capitalist 
industry  has  come  as  a  result  of  that  inherent  instability 
which  the  War  has  so  fatally  accentuated,  and  from  the 
loss  of  prestige  v/hich  it  has  clearly  sustained  in  the 
public  estimation.  But  even  if  these  causes  were  absent, 
its  efficiency  and  even  its  continued  existence  would  be 
threatened  for  the  further  one  that  the  workers,  on  whom 
it  depends,  are  increasingly  orgc.ni".pd  not  merely  to 
maintain  their  status  and  condition  of  life,  but  to  tran- 
scend that  status  altogether.  The  assumption  that 
"Labour"  should  be,  and  can  be,  expected  to  remain  a 
passive  instrument  for  the  purposes  of  wealth  exploita- 
tion, involves  an  utter  denial  of  the  workers'  personality 


IN  KELATIOX  TO  MODEKl^  SOCIETY       13 

and  initiative,  not  only  individually,  but  as  expressed  cor- 
porately  through  their  industrial  associations,  which  are 
condemned  to  remain  irresponsible  and  divorced  from  all 
control  (save  in  certain  negative  aspects)  over  the  indus- 
tries tliey  cover.  This  assumption,  however,  is  one  that 
plutocracy  is  no  longer  safe  in  making;  and  in  view  of 
Labour's  resistance  to  it,  the  capitalist  organization  of 
industry  has  no  future ;  the  theory  of  the  "class-struggle" 
stiffens  into  a  fact;  and  the  community  is  in  danger  of  a 
hopeless  dislocation  in  supply.  Yet  Labour,  confronted 
by  tlie  crisis  its  resistance  has  thus  contributed  to  provoke, 
is  bewildered  and  confused.  Condemned  as  it  has  been 
for  a  century  and  a  half  subjection  to  industrialism,  and 
accustomed  only  to  the  role  of  opposition,  the  workers, 
called  by  the  urgency  of  the  moment  to  take  the  leap  from 
a  rebellious  passivity  to  responsible  leadership,  find  them- 
selves almost  helpless,  and  even  apprehensive  of  the  very 
catastrophe  which  they  have  so  long  professed  to  desire. 
And  they  are  so  because  they  perceive  that  without  the 
rapid  development  of  a  great  alternative,  the  "destruc- 
tion of  capitalism"  will  mean  the  destruction  of  society. 
It  Is  the  lack,  not  of  "Ideas" — for  with  these  Labour 
is  plentifully  spoonfed  by  its  "intelligentsia" — but  of  an 
Idea  adequate  to  embody  and  achieve  Its  aspirations  that 
gives  to  the  less  Irresponsible  sections  of  that  movement 
the  lurking  doubt  that  it  may  be  baffled  by  the  very 
completeness  of  its  opportunity  to  triumph.  True,  its 
leaders  whistle  shrilly  enough  in  their  political  manifestos 
and  Industrial  orations  to  keep  up  the  courage  of  their 
followers — and  their  ov/n.  But  such  "public  opinion" 
as  tends  to  sympathize  with  them  is  not  greatly  impressed, 
and  a  just  suspicion  Is  abroad  that  while  Labour  repud- 
iates the  moral  claims  of  capitalism,  It  does  not  repudiate 
(and,  Indeed,  has  largely  failed  to  appreciate)  the  mater- 


14  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

ialist  basis  on  which  they  are  founded.  Many  of  the 
spiritual  values,  and  whole  categories  of  thought — 
whether  reformist  or  "Bolshevist" — now  prevailing  in 
the  Labour  Movement  are  fundamentally  similar  to  those 
of  capita.lism.  Labour's  projected  alternatives  to  capital- 
ism are  not  in  many  vital  respects  contradictions  of  its 
basis  and  principles,  but  either  modifications  or  inversions 
of  them.  Their  application  would  change  the  architec- 
tural plan  of  society  by  the  introduction  of  new  features 
which  could  not,  in  fact,  be  grafted  successfully  on  to  the 
original  structure;  or  they  would  destroy  tlie  whole  and 
make  what  might  appear  a  fresh  start.  At  best,  however, 
it  would  be  but  a  fresh  start  on  the  same  old  foundations, 
and  attempted  with  the  same  bricks. 

This  failure  of  Labour  sufficiently  to  disentangle  itself 
from  the  ideas  and  assumptions  on  which  plutocracy  has 
raised  its  wretched  social  structure  is  partly  moral  (as 
will  be  further  made  clear  in  later  section),  and  partly — 
and  consequently — intellectual.  The  political  philosophy 
of  Labour  (so  far  as  it  has  one),  for  all  its  Socialist 
tendencies,  rests  very  largely  on  the  individualist  falla- 
cies which  gave  to  the  pioneers  of  capitalism  their  sanc- 
tion and  their  opportunity.  The  affirmation  of  rights, 
rather  than  the  acceptance  of  functions,  Is  still  too  often 
made  the  precarious  basis  of  Labour's  claims;  and  "free- 
dom"— eternally  elusive  if  sought  for  Its  own  sake — Is 
imagined  as  the  goal  of  a  new  and  delicately-elaborated 
social  order.  Instead  of  being  understood  as  the  inevitable 
by-product  of  a  just  one.  In  more  practical  respects,  too. 
Labour  Is  still  Intellectually  the  slave  of  Its  social  gov- 
ernors. The  hypotheses  on  which  plutocratic  society 
founds  its  operations — many  of  them  illusions,  and  some 
of  them  monstrous  fallacies — still  masquerade  success- 
fully before  the  workers  in  the  guise  of  economic  science. 


IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       15 

That  credit  must  necessarily  be  based  on  securities  which 
only  capitalists  can  offer;  that  "increased  production" 
must  in  itself  and  regardless  of  its  nature  inevitably  be 
of  economic  benefit  to  the  whole  community;  that  pur- 
chasing-power should  only  be  distributed  in  return  for 
work;  that  the  multiplication  of  machinery  is  a  sign,  and 
even  a  condition,  of  economic  progress ;  that  prices  must 
for  ever  serve  as  the  "automatic  register  of  the  relation 
between  the  supply  of  goods  and  the  supply  of  money" ; 
that  the  worker  must  continue  to  receive  his  remunera- 
tion in  the  form  of  a  wage ;  all  these  fatal  assumptions, 
and  many  others,  are  accepted  almost  unquestionably  in 
the  Labour  movement  without  a  glimpse  of  the  truth 
that  while  they  remain  unchallenged,  and  even  unexam- 
ined, no  constructive  economic  policy  can  possibly  be 
developed  capable  of  countering  the  dominion  which 
plutocracy,  by  maintaining  such  superstitions,  is  enabled 
to  preserve. 

But  whatever  the  magnitude  of  its  failure  morally  and 
intellectually  to  rise  to  the  height  which  the  occasion 
demands,  the  Labour  Movement  cannot  possibly  be  set 
on  one  side,  and  we  must  never  despair  of  it.  For  that 
movement  embodies,  when  all  is  said,  three  vital  things. 
It  is  essentially  a  reply  to  the  pretensions  of  plutocracy, 
and  has  grown  up,  as  nothing  else  in  our  society  has 
done,  in  order  to  resist  them.  It  is,  further,  on  the  whole, 
a  real  democracy  amid  the  shams  and  shadows  of  political 
forms.  And,  finally,  it  is  already  in  a  measure  an  engine 
of  emancipation,  capable,  could  it  but  find  a  true  unifying 
principle  and  a  programme  really  constructive,  of  forming 
the  nucleus  of  a  noble  social  order.  But  with  all  its  rapid 
expansion  in  numbers  and  in  scope,  and  even  (in  certain 
directions)  in  policy  and  in  ideas,  the  Labour  Movement 
still  fails  to  perceive  that  its  real  task  is  to  come  to  the 


16  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

rescue  of  society,  and  not  to  intervene  only  with  the 
effect  of  dislocating  it.  A  policy  of  merely  frustrating 
capitalism  will  destroy  the  momentum  of  industry,  with- 
out providing  any  unifying  principle  or  apparatus  of 
organization  capable  of  bringing  a  "new  social  order" 
out  of  the  chaos  thus  created.  A  true  social  policy  for 
to-day  would  appeal  to  the  best  that  was  in  the  heart  and 
mind  of  men  in  every  stratum  of  society — not  perhaps 
for  identical  reasons,  but  as  tending  to  an  identical  aim. 
We  have  to  ask  whether  either  official  "Labourism"  or 
Bolshevism  provides  this,  and  if  not,  where  else  its 
elements  are  to  be  sought  and  found. 


IV 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Labour  Movement  in  the  pre- 
vious section  as  if  the  multitudinous  efforts  put  forward 
by  and  on  behalf  of  the  working  masses  could  be  consid- 
ered as  part  of  a  co-ordinated  whole ;  but  it  would  be 
difficult  at  a  closer  inspection  to  find  those  efforts  united 
by  common  principles  or  common  aims,  or,  indeed,  by 
anything  but  a  few  catch-phrases  expressing  hostility  to 
"capitalism."  Certain  broad  lines  of  cleavage  within  "the 
ranks  of  Labour"  are  indeed  clear,  and  becoming  clearer ; 
but  there  has  up  till  recently  been  a  tendency,  in  this 
country  at  any  rate,  to  consider  a  few  stereotyped  phrases 
as  sufficiently  indicating  the  goal  to  be  aimed  at,  and  to 
treat  the  "Right,"  "Left,"  and  "Centre"  as  if  they  were 
part  of  a  football  team,  each  urging  forward  the  ball  of 
progress  by  their  own  method  when  it  happened  to  come 
their  way.  To-day  Bolshevik  theory  and  the  Communist 
fact  of  Soviet  Russia  are  rapidly  dispelling  this  very  char- 
acteristic illusion,  and  competing  "Internationals"  growl 


IlSr  KELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       17 

at  one  another  with  a  ferocity  which  Socialists  had  gen- 
erally reserved  for  "the  master  class."  Despite  the 
formation  of  "centre  parties"  for  building  bridges  to 
span  gulfs  quite  unbridgable,  the  main  lines  of  division 
in  policy  and  principle  are  clear  enough ;  and  the  rank 
and  file  have  to  choose,  if  not  this  day,  at  any  rate  very 
soon,  whether  they  will  serve  "official  Labour"  or  the 
Communism  which  has  its  far  from  spiritual  home  in 
Moscow. 

The  choice  appears  for  the  moment  inevitable,  but  it 
does  not  any  the  less  present  itself  to  us  as  other  than  a 
choice  between  two  evils.  Neither  movement  can  offer 
us  a  unifying  principle  worthy  of  the  name.  It  is  true 
that  each  believes  firmly  enough  that  it  possesses  such  a 
thing.  "Official  Labour"  is  a  curious  and  obviously 
transitional  compound  of  a  jealously  proletarian  but 
largely  defensive  Trade  Unionism  and  a  theoretically 
"national"  political  party  with  the  largest  ambitions.  But 
a  formula  is  believed  to  have  been  found  capable  of 
developing  this  unwieldy  structure  into  an  impressive 
force.  This  formula  is  that  in  which  Labour  politicians 
appeal  to  "workers  by  hand  and  brain"  to  make  alliance 
in  the  common  cause  of  ending  their  servitude,  and  that 
of  society,  to  the  capitalist  exploiter.  The  phrase  is  a 
specious  one :  there  is,  indeed,  much  belated  commonsense 
in  the  appeal ;  but  it  may  justly  be  doubted  whether  it  will 
accomplish  the  miracles  of  social  transformation  which 
seem  to  be  expected  of  it. 

We  need  not  stop  to  discuss  the  doubtful  value  of  an 
implied  distinction  between  workers  by  hand  and  by  brain, 
for  clearly  no  one  could  be  an  efficient  worker  of  any 
sort  without  the  use  of  both  constantly,  and  often  simul- 
taneously ;  nor  stay  to  inquire  into  which  classification  the 
skilled  mechanic  or  the  drudge  on  an  office  stool  ought 


18  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

respectively  to  fall.  Dangers  of  perpetuating  social  caste 
are  not  absent  from  the  application  of  this  formula ;  but 
its  essential  failure  lies  in  its  implied  acceptance  of  capi- 
talist criteria  as  to  what  constitutes  socially  valuable 
work.  If  those  who  challenge  the  economic  organization 
of  capitalism  do  so  merely  as  "workers,"  then  limitations 
of  outlook,  and  even  considerations  of  immediate  self- 
interest,  may  forbid  them  to  inquire  too  closely  whether 
the  particular  work,  on  which  the  maintenance  of  their 
economic  position  appears  to  depend,  is  valid  or  justifiable 
at  all  from  the  standpoint  of  the  general  interest.  Yet 
not  until  issues  of  this  sort  are  fearlessly  raised  can  the 
economic  dominion  of  plutocracy  be  seriously  shaken,  and 
its  dictation  of  industrial  policy  meet  with  effective  reply. 
When  the  enormous  scope  of  luxury  production,  the 
number  of  "parasitic"  occupations,  and  the  dissipation 
of  human  energies  into  channels  of  waste  are  remem- 
bered, it  may  be  realized  how  many  of  the  country's 
busiest  "workers"  would  find  their  immediate  economic 
interests  seeming  to  lie  rather  with  the  maintenance  of 
plutocracy  than  with  any  programme  which  seriously 
threatened  to  disturb  it.  This  is,  of  course,  particularly 
true  of  those  "middle-class"  hirelings  of  capitalist  indus- 
try, for  whose  support  official  Labour  is  now  sedulously 
angling.  They  may  be  gained  for  a  political  unification 
based  on  a  common  antagonism,  until  that  opposition  is 
faced  with  the  prospect  of  effecting  a  constructive  change 
which  shall  not  damage  the  vested  interests  of  any  of  its 
component  parts.  But  once  embarked  on  any  honest 
effort  to  bring  into  being  a  "new  social  order,"  the  impos- 
ing forces  of  Labour  will  melt  away  in  acrimonious 
confusion.  And  this  for  the  reason  that  no  basis  has 
been  found  for  economic  achievement  or  moral  imity 
in  the  pursuit  of  a  common  purpose. 


IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       19 

The  force  of  circumstances,  and  an  energetic  propa- 
ganda, have  combined  during  the  last  ten  years  to  effect 
most  important  modifications  in  the  complacent  evolution- 
ary collectivism  which  was  for  so  long  the  whole  social 
Gospel  of  official  Labourism.  But  beliefs  so  traditional 
die  hard,  and  new  phraseology  has  not  in  itself  gone 
far  to  create  a  new  mentality.  "Nationalization"  still 
represents  a  panacea  to  a  Labour  movement  with  scarcely 
a  vestige  of  control  over  "the  representatives  of  the 
nation,"  political  or  bureaucratic,  and  therefore  with 
scant  prospect  of  rendering  "control  by  the  workers" 
effective,  even  if  it  should  be  nominally  conceded.  Vast 
promises  are  made  by  Labour  politicians  of  the  blessing 
which  the  workers  can  confidently  expect  will  they  but 
return  them  to  power.  But  no  clear  recognition  is  shown 
of  the  fact  that  political  methods,  however  necessary 
or  valuable,  are  essentially  passive  so  far  as  the  masses 
are  concerned,  and  cannot  in  any  event  do  anything 
considerable  to  stimulate  the  initiative  or  prepare  the 
democratic  achievements  on  which  alone  a  free  society 
can  be  securely  founded.  Similarly,  the  goal  of  the 
"Leisure  State"  obscures  the  truth  that  such  a  free  society 
is  impossible  unless  men  are  consciously  and  positively 
free  in  the  performance  of  their  work,  and  not  merely 
in  their  spare  time.  Only  work  done  in  an  atmosphere 
of  freedom  can  be  done  for  its  own  sake,  and  a  noble 
social  order  could  not  be  content  to  apply  any  lesser 
criterion  to  the  preponderant  majority  of  its  industrial 
activities.  "Liberty"  in  the  abstract  is  still  the  dream  of 
the  sentimentalists  of  Labour,  when  what  they  ought 
rather  to  be  striving  for  is  the  achievement  of  definite 
liberties,  through  the  attainment  of  which  true  liberty 
can  alone  be  established— or  even  by  the  majority  appre- 
hended.    But  in  place  of  this  the  actual  struggles  of  the 


20  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

workers  are  far  too  exclusively  concentrated  round  the 
issues  of  wages  and  hours,  which  leave  them  groping  in 
a  fog  of  materialism,  and  going  round  in  circles  as  men 
do  in  fogs — the  vicious  circles  to  which  the  economic 
dominion  of  plutocracy  condemns  the  futilities  of  indus- 
trial agitation. 

V 

Bolshevism  is  the  nemesis  of  sentimental  Socialism. 
Its  theorists  perceive  the  futility  of  "democracy"  and 
"liberty,"  as  the  Labourites  have  been  content  to  interpret 
them,  and  they  set  out  to  solve  the  problem  (as  it  presents 
itself  to  them)  of  how  to  beat  capitalism  at  its  ozvn  game. 
That  game  of  tyranny  over  personality  and  contempt 
for  human  will,  they  declare,  is  one  that  two  can  play, 
and  its  "bourgeois"  devisers  will  live  to  meet  their  match 
in  the  forces  of  a  Marx-conscious  proletariat.  The  Bol- 
shevik conception  of  the  "proletariat"  is  its  fundamental 
unifying  principle,  as  is  the  "dictatorship"  of  that  prole- 
tariat the  uncompromising  basis  of  its  social  policy.  It 
is  with  these  blazing  torches  that  Bolshevism  and  its 
"third  International"  have  aspired  to  kindle  the  fires  of 
the  World  Revolution,  and  they  have  already  flared 
wildly  enough  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  the  wage-slaves  of 
industrialism  everywhere. 

The  Communist  experiment  which  has  followed  on 
the  collapse  of  the  old  social  fabric  in  Russia — and  incor- 
porated not  a  few  of  its  most  evil  features — has  raised 
a  storm  of  some  of  the  most  unscrupulous  controversy 
(on  both  sides)  in  the  history  of  politics.  It  is  outside 
our  purpose  here  to  venture  into  that  storm,  but  the 
political  theory  of  the  new  Communism  is  too  compelling 


IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       21 

in  its  challenge  to  be  anywhere  disregarded  altogether/ 
We  can  but  comment  on  a  few  of  its  implications  and 
manifestations  in  order  to  support  our  conviction  that 
it  is  not  in  this  direction  that  we  can  look  for  the  Idea 
in  the  strength  of  which  society  may  be  redeemed.  Its 
guiding  principle  of  "proletarianism,"  though  the  term 
means  something  very  different  from  the  mass-democ- 
racy which  the  innocent  might  imagine  to  be  implied  in 
it,  is  a  conception  not  difficult  to  grasp.  It  involves  the 
acceptance  by  a  "class-conscious"  and  rigidly  organized 
minority  of  a  mission  to  drive  society  forward  by  every 
means  (and  without  staying  for  a  moment  more  of  per- 
suasion or  propaganda  than  shall  be  necessary  for  the 
attainment  of  the  required  power),  into  a  condition  of 
life  in  which  by  the  surrender  of  initiative  to  a  handful  of 
dictators,  the  equitable  distribution  of  social  resources 
can  be  achieved.  Equality  is  imposed  on  the  mass — and 
not  discovered  by  them ;  liberty  of  action  and  expression 
is  obliterated  for  opponents,  and  discreetly  "rationed" 
to  those  who  consent  to  the  experiment;  fraternity  in 
trade  union  and  functional  association  of  every  kind  is 
suffered  only  beneath  the  all-pervading  supervision  of 
the  omnipotent  Centre. 

Such  being  the  methods  of  Bolshevik  proletarianism, 
it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  how  far  its  ultimate  aims 
harmonize  with  a  true  ideal  of  social  democracy,  since 
to  us  it  seems  self-evident  that  no  such  ideal  could  pos- 
sibly be  realized  by  them.  The  desperate  diseases  by 
which  the  old  Russian  civilization  was  stricken  may  have 
demanded  desperate  remedies ;  but  on  communities  from 
which  the  elements  of  health  are  not  absent  altogether, 

*The  social  and  economic  tenets  of  Marxism,  by  which  contem- 
porary Communism  is  inspired,  are  closely  examined  in  Chapter 
VIII  of  this  volume. 


22  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

proletarianism  can  act  only  as  a  poison.  Applied  to  our 
own  society,  the  conception  of  the  "proletariat"  is  in 
every  respect  inadequate  as  a  unifying  principle.  Many 
of  the  most  essential  elements,  whole  classes  as  we 
know  them  to-day,  cannot  be  made  to  fit  into  it;  or  if 
they  are  so  fitted,  it  is  a  violation  of  their  legitimate 
character  and  traditions.  Proletarianism  involves  isola- 
tion of  and  concentration  upon  the  least  human  and 
truly  normal  of  all  forms  of  social  status,  with  the  result 
that  the  "proletariat"  being  taken  as  the  centre  of  all, 
there  follows  a  distortion  of  everything.  The  circum- 
ference of  capitalist  organization  becomes  the  center  of 
the  new  society.  But  proletarian  dictatorship  can  never 
be  citizen  rule,  nor  even  tend  towards  it;  it  is  at  best  a 
rule  in  the  interest  of  slaves,  and  in  its  working  likely  to 
operate  as  a  more  direct  and  concentrated  rule  over  them. 
It  destroys  not  only  the  idea  of  liberty,  but  the  actual 
social  autonomies  within  society  in  which  men's  liberties 
have  been  slowly  discovered  and  substantiated,  and  with- 
out which  civil  liberty  itself  becomes  a  shadow. 

But  the  vital  objections  to  the  Bolshevik  principles  and 
programme  are  more  fundamental  even  than  this,  and 
do  not  depend  upon  political  considerations  at  all.  They 
arise  from  the  Bolshevik  claim  to  find  in  a  "materialist 
interpretation"  of  the  governing  factors  in  society,  past 
and  present,  a  sufficient  analysis  of  the  social  problem. 
We  cannot  treat  here  of  so  large  a  claim  otherwise  than 
by  affirming  a  direct  denial  of  it.  Without  a  spiritual 
conception  of  individual  destiny  and  social  association 
underlying  all,  no  movement  can  lead  (as  even  Bolshev- 
ism claims  that  it  will  some  day  lead)  to  any  true  eman- 
cipation ;  for  the  application  of  such  a  test  is  the  only 
standard  and  the  only  guarantee  sufficient  to  establish 
such  an  achievement  and  to  maintain  it.     But  Bolshev- 


IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       23 

ism,  in  reaction  against  the  illusions  of  a  purely  subjective 
"freedom"  and  a  beneficent  "progress,"  takes  its  stand 
not — as  a  valid  theory  must  do — on  objective  rights  and 
social  will,  but  on  objective  facts  and  material  power. 
The  full  implications  of  this  fundamental  error  have 
not  been  generally  perceived,  even  by  Bolsheviks  them- 
selves, but  they  are  remarkable  indeed.  History,  Art  in 
all  its  branches,  even  the  developing  science  of  Psychol- 
ogy, are  all  subjected  to  the  interpretations  of  Material- 
ism. Marxian  and  neo-Marxian  distortions  of  historical 
development  are  tolerably  familiar ;  but  it  comes  as  some- 
thing of  a  shock  to  learn  from  a  Bolshevik  literary  critic 
that  "the  road  to  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  the  prole- 
tariat is  indissolubly  bound  up  with  the  growth  of 
machinery  production."  An  almost  insane  glorification 
of  the  machine  becomes  the  burden  of  the  new  "prole- 
tarian culture"  which  has  lately  arisen  in  Soviet  Russia. 
The  machine  becomes  the  center  of  society,  and  its 
existence  determines  not  merely  the  character,  but  even 
the  motive  of  it.  "The  machine,"  says  a  Bolshevik  critic,^ 
"is  not  a  soulless  object;  it  is  the  living  clot  of  the  collec- 
tive energy  of  workmen,  which  goes  on  living  in  all 
departments  of  production  and  serves  as  an  inviting 
stimulus  for  the  living  proletariat  in  their  further  work. 
The  machine  regulates  the  relation  of  the  workmen, 
their  conduct,  assigns  to  them  definite  tasks  ...  in  her 
they  live.  Her  development  is  the  development  of  the 
proletariat,  the  triumph  of  the  machine  is  indissolubly 
bound  up  with  the  triumph  of  the  workmen."  A  Bol- 
shevik poem  speaks  of  "a  new  iron  blood"  pouring  into 
the  workers'  veins.     And  it  is  proclaimed  to  the  world 

'  See  four  remarkable  articles  on  "Proletarian  Culture,"  by  John 
Cournos,  in  The  Neiv  Europe,  vol.  xiii.  October-November  1919, 
from  which  the  following  quotations  are  taken. 


24  THE  IDEA  OF  CHKISTEl^DOM 

that  "the  proletariat  has  realized  that  the  strength  of  its 
revolution  consists  not  alone  in  a  political  and  military 
dictatorship,  but  also  in  a  cultural  dictatorship." 

But  Historical  and  Cultural  Materialism  are  less  likely 
to  prove  dangerous  in  their  practical  effect,  than  the 
attempt  to  discover  in  psychology  a  basis  for  the  dic- 
tatorship of  "efficiency,"  as  judged  by  Marxian  stand- 
ards, over  "the  great  dull  and  indifferent  majority."  In 
an  extraordinary  and  very  sinister  article  appearing 
recently  in  a  British  "proletarian"  journal,^  the  author 
seeks,  w^ith  an  assiduity  vv^orthy  of  the  blackest  "reaction- 
ary," to  find  in  psychological  experiment  a  ground  for 
the  final  repudiation  of  the  very  idea  of  democracy.  "It 
is  for  the  scientific  Socialist  to  brush  aside  sentimental 
considerations,"  he  concludes,  "and  plan  how,  in  the  new- 
society  the  interests  of  these  dull  people  shall  he  safe- 
guarded, while  at  the  same  time  their  reactionary  and 
deadening  influence  on  creative  policy,  and  in  all  matters 
involving  a  long  view  and  the  acceptance  of  new  ideas, 
is  eliminated."  Contempt  for  the  claims  of  human  per- 
sonality could  hardly  be  more  brutally  expressed  by  a 
member  of  our  present  governing  classes.  If  the  Bol- 
sheviks should  succeed  in  putting  down  the  mighty  from 
their  seats,  it  would  only  be  to  fill  those  seats  again  them- 
selves. Their  despotism  might  be  benevolent,  but  the 
humble  and  meek  would  not  find  themselves  exalted,  in 
spirit  or  in  station;  they  would  remain  where  they  are. 
The  "sweeping  away  of  democratic  lumber,"  which  the 
Bolshevik  proclaims  in  the  name  of  a  purely  intellectual 
revelation,  would  result  in  a  "sociological  Calvinism" — 
the  rule  of  those  "saved"  by  their  understanding  of  a 
materialist  interpretation  of  social  phenomena  over  "the 

'  The  Plehs  Magazine,  October  1920,  "The  Mechanism  of  the 
Mind,"  by  "Nordicus." 


IN  KELATION  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY       25 

great  dull  and  indifferent  majority."  This  is  the  new 
world  of  Communism — a  new  world  founded  on  tlie  old 
values,  with  fresh  labels  and  a  fresh  tyranny  to  interpret 
them. 

VI 

The  power  of  the  Socialist  idea  is  undeniable.  Under 
its  influence  there  has  risen,  perhaps,  the  most  noble 
secular  movement  that  has  succeeded  in  thrusting  itself 
through  the  arid  soil  of  the  modern  world.  But  not  here 
can  we  recognize  that  Tree  of  Life,  whose  leaves  are  for 
the  healing  of  the  nations.  Neither  "Labourism"  nor 
Bolshevism  offers  a  rallying  ground  for  those  who,  while 
convinced  of  the  moral  impossibility  and  economic  futil- 
ity of  plutocracy,  are  not  "Progressive"  nor  Materialist 
in  their  outlook.  The  prestige  of  capitalism  is  steadily 
sinking,  and  its  glaring  inefficiency  as  a  means  of  supply- 
ing society  with  its  elementary  needs,  spiritual  and 
material,  is  becoming  more  strikingly  obvious  as  it  moves 
toward  its  perilous  culmination.  But  men  do  not  know 
where  to  turn  for  a  social  principle  stronger  and  more 
attractive  than  that  of  individual  "enterprise"  expressing 
its  success  by  the  accumulation  of  private  gain.  A  doc- 
trinaire rigidity  of  formula  on  the  part  of  the  opponents 
of  plutocracy  blinds  them  to  the  essentials  of  that  hid- 
eous philosophy,  so  that  they  are  unable  to  perceive  the 
moral  and  practical  significance  of  the  distinction  between 
its  normal,  but  venial,  defects,  and  its  desperate  excesses, 
which  translate  into  virtue  a  sin  deadly  alike  to  those 
who  indulge  it  and  those  who  are  its  victims.  "Interest" 
may  form  an  unjustifiable  and  an  ultimately  intolerable 
toll^ :  "profits"  are  the  incentive  and  the  goal  of  an  unap- 

'  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  impossible  to  find  very  vakiable 
social  implications  in  the  universal ising  of  the  dividend  system. 
For  the  views  of  the  present  writer  on  this  subject  see  Chapter  VII. 


26  THE  IDEA  OF  CHRISTENDOM 

peasable  avarice.  The  elimination  of  "profits"  is  an  im- 
portant step  to  the  emancipation  of  labour,  and  a  step 
that  the  workers  might  well  proceed  to  take,  if,  instead 
of  bickering  with  the  owners  of  capital  while  remaining 
employed  by  them,  they  would  more  generally  contrive 
means  to  employ  capital,  which  would  enable  them  to 
embark  on  responsible  tasks  and  experiments.^ 

But  though  the  workers'  assaults  on  plutocracy  are  in 
many  respects  badly  conceived  and  dissipated  in  pathetic 
futilities,  it  is  not  any  "practical  programme"  merely 
which  can  wholly  restore  by  a  new  inspiration  the  for- 
tunes of  their  desperate  crusade.  Only  the  conception 
of  Christendom,  the  clear  vision  of  a  society  in 
which  the  free  activities  of  men  are  gathered  together 
to  create  a  social  order  which  can  be  offered  as  a 
gift  to  the  glory  of  God,  can  achieve  this.  In  such 
a  society  not  only  would  the  whole  social  order  be 
such  as  man  could  feel  to  be  worthy  of  God's  purpose 
for  mankind,  but  every  individual  in  it  could  com- 
mend his  personal  activity  to  the  Lord  and  Father  of 
all,  as  affording  him  at  least  the  opportunity  to  give  the 
best  that  he  could  offer.  The  kingdom  of  God  would  then 
arise  to  embody — for  the  first  time — a  truly  adequate 
conception  of  Vocation  to  its  citizens,  such  as  the  mass 
of  Christian  folk,  however  faithful  or  devout,  can  never 
realize  within  a  plutocracy,  or  indeed  any  other  tyranny, 
communist  or  otherwise.  The  human  soul  would  find 
thereby  a  fold  to  which  it  could  at  last  return,  and  such 
as  the  most  exalted  ecclesiasticism  could  never  supply 
while  it  remained  within  an  antagonistic  world  order. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  ideals  and  even  the  achieve- 

1  This  policy  has  already  been  embraced  by  the  guilds  newly 
formed  in  building  and  agriculture. 


IN  RELATIO:^^  TO  MODERN  SOCIETY     27 

ments  of  Medi^evalism,  for  all  their  enormous  imper- 
fections, offer  us  a  pattern  so  inspiring,  an  example  so 
unique.  We  cannot,  we  would  not  if  we  could,  "go 
back  to  the  Middle  Ages,"  but  it  is  from  the  nobler  efforts 
of  the  Middle  Ages  that  we  should  seek  to  go  forward, 
from  the  days  before  men  had  proved  unworthy  of  the 
ideal  of  Christendom,  and  before  the  time  when  in  flee- 
ing from  its  corruptions  they  attained  no  new  fellow- 
ship, but  only  "the  isolation  of  the  human  soul."  That 
ideal  is  one  which  cannot  be  immediately  recovered: 
England  cannot  be  recovered  for  the  Faith  by  any 
wholesale  "conversion."  After  some  five  centuries  of 
"egocentric"  social  organization,  culminating  in  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  plutocratic  industrialism,  its 
spiritual  truths  cannot  be  apprehended  by  the  masses 
when  preached  to  them  in  theological  form.  Nor  is  it 
easier  to  awaken  the  pious  from  a  somnolent  orthodoxy 
to  the  implications  of  the  tremendous  task  to  which,  by 
their  profession  of  their  creed,  they  are  committed. 
But  in  the  process  of  constructing  a  society  built  as  a 
real  challenge  to  the  existing  values,  an  arena  would  be 
created  in  which  the  recovery  of  Faith  would  become 
possible,  and  its  full  meaning  at  last  visible  to  the  many 
to  whom  in  this  tangle  of  social  apostasy  it  can  never  be 
revealed.  The  recovery  of  the  guild,  for  example, 
would  offer  a  glimpse  of  the  great  ideal  which  that  indis- 
pensable organization  attempted  in  a  vital  respect  to 
fulfil.  There  may  be  few  who  can  recognize  the  Rock 
on  which  Christendom  must  be  built,  but  the  many 
must  set  to  building  it,  realizing  gradually  its  full 
splendours  as  the  towers  rise  upon  their  humble  stones. 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA 

BY 

HENRY  H.  SLESSER,  Barrister-at-Law 

Lecturer  on  Industrial  Law  in  the  University  of  London 

Author  of  The  Nature  of  Being,  etc. 


30  THE  RETUR:N"  OF  DOGMA 


SYNOPSIS 

§  1.  Dogma  and  Empiricism 

Tendency  of  the  age  towards  immediate  achievement.  Modern 
outlook  fundamentally  pessimistic.  Destruction  of  freedom  of 
personality.  The  true  object  of  thought  to  discover  Purpose.  Per- 
sonal certainty  and  dogma.  Modern  faith  in  the  causal — its  effect  in 
government. 

What  Reality  is — ^the  world  known  through  the  Self.  Solipsism, 
and  belief  in  others.  The  belief  in  others  a  dogma.  Reality  to  be 
found  in  creative  freedom.  Knowledge  of  event  and  mystical  know- 
ledge compared.  The  belief  in  the  Good,  Beautiful  and  True  culmi- 
nates in  a  belief  in  God  as  revealed  by  our  Lord, 

§2.  Christian  Dogma 

The  pursuit  of  philosophy  the  privilege  of  the  few,  but  conduct 
and  beauty  universal  interests.  These  involve  choice.  The  chal- 
lenge of  Nietzche.  The  issue  between  Nietzche  and  Christianity. 
Sin.  Ontological  belief  in  Christ  and  its  effects.  Its  sanction.  The 
equality  of  man — free  will.  The  limitations  of  the  Stoics.  Christian 
mysticism  joyous.  The  Kingdom  of  God.  Catholicism  reposes 
upon  a  miraculous  basis.  Bergson  and  Will.  Evolution  only 
possible  if  it  is  creative.  "Modernism"  in  faith  self-contradictory. 
The  philosophy  of  the  Miraculous.  The  Miraculous  and  nomencla- 
ture. The  Miraculous  and  art.  Freedom  and  humour,  fruits  of 
the  Miraculous.    The  mediaeval  heritage. 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  31 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA 

§  I.     Dogma  and  Empiricism 

There  is  a  constant  tendency  in  our  age  to  be  concerned 
with  immediate  achievement,  rather  than  with  ultimate 
object  and  value.  We  collect,  analyse  and  arrange  data 
of  every  kind ;  we  invent  and  construct  elaborate 
mechanism  to  constrain  nature  to  our  will ;  we  devise 
innumerable  schemes  of  social  regeneration,  but,  gen- 
erally speaking,  we  avoid  thought  as  to  final  ends  and 
are  apt  to  regard  them  as  unworthy  of  a  modern  man's 
consideration. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  a  need  of  every  person  and  of 
every  nation,  as  experience  is  daily  showing  us,  that 
effort,  to  be  fruitful,  must  be  based  upon  some  fiinda- 
mental  assurance.  Complete  undogmatic  agnosticism, 
not  less  than  an  uncritical  sentimentality,  result  in  men- 
tal and  moral  confusion,  while,  in  proportion  as  we  are 
inspired  by  certain  conviction,  does  life  become  richer, 
art  finer,  and  philosophy  more  profound. 

The  conclusions  of  modern  science  to  which  so  many 
people  now  cling  for  guidance,  even  when  they  do 
attempt  to  give  us  a  rule  of  life,  are  negative  and  dis- 
piriting, and  make  it  increasingly  difficult  for  persons 
of  sensibility  to  take  a  joyous  view  of  life.  We  are  told 
by  many  of  our  contemporaries  how  the  world  in  which 


32  THE  RETURiT  OF  DOGMA 

we  live  must  become  cold  and  uninhabitable,  how  the 
whole  of  what  we  cherish — our  lives  and  institutions, 
both  in  their  present  form  and  future  development — are 
doomed  to  ultimate  annihilation,  how,  for  a  time,  the 
cold-blooded  reptile  may  survive  us ;  but  that,  in  the  end, 
all  our  hopes  and  fears  will  find  their  conclusion  in  dis- 
solution and  endless  night.  The  secular  mortality  of  man 
is  extended  to  everything  else,  and  in  the  face  of  giant 
natural  forces  we  are  impotent.  Not  even  the  transfer- 
ence of  interest  from  ourselves  to  our  descendants  can 
save  us,  for  they  also,  we  are  told,  are  doomed  to  a  futile 
destruction. 

For  a  period  we  were  left  with  a  personality  and  will  to 
fashion  our  lives  for  the  short  time  allotted  to  us,  but 
even  in  our  personal  small  domain  the  naturalists  now 
seek  to  enchain  us.  Our  loves,  our  graces,  our  genius; 
all  that  makes  us  men,  is  now  said  to  be  the  result  of 
glands  or  of  mechanical  complexes  which  thrust  us  this 
way  and  that,  now  covering,  now  obtruding  our  sub- 
conscious self,  according  to  the  inexorable  requirements 
of  the  laws  of  psychology.  Thus  we  arrive  at  a  state  in 
which,  deprived  of  hope,  will  and  responsibility,  man  is 
left  only  with  a  haunting  sense  of  his  own  impotence, 
and,  with  such  an  equipment,  whose  defects  are  but  par- 
tially hidden  by  crude  spasmodic  sentimentalisms,  modern 
reformers  call  upon  him  to  renovate  the  world. 

The  normal  man,  however,  continues  to  resist  the 
subtle  suggestion,  repeated  from  so  many  quarters,  that 
he  is  but  an  automaton.  Regardless  of  authority  and 
argument  he  retains  a  faith  in  his  freedom  and 
responsibility. 

It  has  been  said  by  Professor  Bradley  that  the  justi- 
fication for  philosophic  inquiry  is  the  satisfaction  of 
curiosity,   but   surely   the  matter   is   deeper   than   that. 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  33 

Every  adult  human  being  has  a  personal  attitude  towards 
life,  more  or  less  complete;  everyone  has  a  basis,  an  out- 
look, and  a  character — this  is  something  more  than  mere 
curiousness,  it  is  a  need  which  is  in  our  very  nature,  it  is 
implicit  in  all  choice  and  in  all  conduct.  Everyone  has 
a  sense  of  what,  to  him,  is  good,  beautiful  and  true. 
Even  the  sceptic  is  not  doubtful  of  his  scepticism;  the 
pragmatist  asserts  as  absolute  truth  that  truth  is  but 
pragmatic.  But  it  is  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  our 
time  that  such  judgments  ever  tend  to  be  personal  and 
subjective.  Dogma,  the  universal  social  achievement  of 
certainty,  is  almost  dogmatically  rejected. 

It  is  the  view  of  the  writers  of  this  book  that  in  this 
extreme  subjectivity  of  outlook,  more  particularly  in  the 
determination  of  the  good,  modern  standards  fail  us. 
The  transition  from  the  merely  curious  speculations  of 
the  early  Greeks  to  the  vital  questioning  of  Socrates  is 
usually  represented  as  a  progress;  if  it  be  so,  we  have 
reverted  in  great  measure  to  the  earlier  and  more  unpro- 
ductive attitude. 

The  steadfast  refusal  of  our  empirics  and  relativists 
to  enunciate  and  insist  upon  universal  foundations  upon 
which  we  all  collectively  may  base  our  thoughts  and 
actions  is  the  more  unfortunate  because,  in  many  ways, 
a  great  awakening  is  in  progress  amongst  us.  If  we 
deplore  the  growth  of  cynicism  and  materialism  on  the 
one  hand,  we  must  acknowledge  the  reviving  sense  of 
human  right  on  the  other.  Plutocracy  and  war  flourish 
side  by  side  with  the  emancipation  of  Labour  and  the 
League  of  Nations.  Goodwill  and  wrong  are  ranged 
against  one  another  more  clearly  than  for  some  time  past 
and,  in  the  shock  of  their  encounter,  it  looks  as  if  the 
complacent  optimism  of  the  Victorian  age  could  not  sur- 
vive.       Yet,   while   materialism    and   power    are    fully 


34  THE  KETURN  OF  DOGMA 

equipped  for  the  fight,  those  who  hope  that  they  are  on  the 
side  of  the  angels  lack  that  dogmatic  unanimity  of  con- 
viction which  alone  can  spur  them  on  to  victory,  and 
prevent  the  dissipation  of  their  energies. 

That  bewildered  attitude  of  the  undogmatic  mind,  in 
some  respects  agnostic,  in  many  superstitious,  character- 
istic of  so  much  of  the  modern  outlook,  is  achieved  by  a 
deliberate  ignoring  of  a  vast  area  of  human  experience, 
namely,  all  that  part  which  is  not  susceptible  of  causal 
demonstration ;  which,  consequently,  cannot  be  made  the 
subject  of  scientific  prediction  and  experiment.  There  is 
a  strong  tendency  to  believe  that  what  cannot  be  weighed 
and  assessed  in  terms  of  time  and  space  is  not  real,  that 
it  is,  to  use  the  current  phrase,  merely  subjective,  and, 
consequently — though  how  the  consequence  arises  it  is 
difficult  to  see — it  is  of  little  or  no  importance. 

Nor  is  this  attitude  merely  academic ;  it  affects  all  our 
lives,  and  is  to  be  noticed  even  in  modern  legislation,  more 
especially  if  the  object  of  parliamentary  benevolence  be 
poor.  A  man  is  simple,  he  thinks  he  would  live  in  a 
wooden  hut;  the  State  forbids  him,  thus  wounding  his 
idiosyncracy ;  he  wishes  to  educate  his  children  in  the 
way  he  considers  right;  a  curriculum  which  may  offend 
the  father's  taste  or  outrage  the  child's  temperament  is 
thrust  upon  them.  A  workman  prefers  to  save  his  money 
in  his  own  way.  Government  prescribes  the  method  of  his 
insurance ;  he  will  consult  a  chemist  as  to  an  ailment,  the 
law  proposes  to  forbid.  In  an  increasing  number  of 
ways  his  freedom  of  action  is  taken  from  him,  mostly 
at  the  behest  of  conscientious  reformers ;  in  all  matters 
his  personal  desires  and  choice  are  the  last  thing  to  be 
considered. 

These  instances  may  be  multiplied,  they  are  but  ex- 
amples of  the  product  of  the  modern  mentality,  which 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  35 

tends  to  scout,  as  unworthy  of  consideration,  all  those 
subtle  personal  feelings  which  go  to  make  up  individ- 
uality; which  are  as  various  as  the  men  who  hold  them, 
and,  consequently,  not  mensurable  by  the  political 
scientist. 

Now  Reality,  so  far  as  men  can  apprehend  it,  is  largely 
a  question  of  personal  value.  To  the  artist,  colour  is 
more  real  than  sound ;  to  the  devout,  grace  is  more  imme- 
diate than  circumstance ;  to  the  stockbroker,  it  is  sup- 
posed, contangoes  are  more  certain  than  plainsong;  but 
to  every  man,  that  which  is  most  real  is  in  and  of  himself, 
neither  the  State,  nor  Progress,  nor  the  Spirit  of  the 
age,  nor  even  his  psychic  state,  but  his  Soul. 

Although  many  philosophers  would  once  again  assert 
the  inherent  independence  of  matter,  apart  from  any 
human  percipient,  most  people  would  still  admit  that  our 
knowledge  of  the  world  is,  at  the  least,  considerably  col- 
oured by  our  personal  outlook.  The  idealistic  views  of 
Bishop  Berkeley  that  things  are  as  they  are  perceived  by 
the  mind  may  have  to  be  refined,  and  a  sufficient  distinc- 
tion drawn  between  observed  things,  the  observing  mind 
and  the  soul ;  but,  nevertheless,  one  element  of  truth 
in  his  doctrine  remains  unimpaired :  that  matter  comes  to 
us,  whatever  else  it  may  be,  as  a  series  of  events,  and  that, 
so  far  from  objective  matter  being  a  direct  experience, 
it  is  a  process,  partly  intellectual,  partly  instinctive,  which 
is  derived  from,  and  is  not  in  itself,  our  original  exper- 
ience. 

Thus,  so  far  from  the  outer  world  being  immediate 
and  personal  consciousness  a  secondary  process;  despite 
the  new  realists,  it  must  be  admitted  that  we  still  start 
from  our  consciousness  and  impute  matter  therefrom, 
and,  if  this  be  so,  if  the  consciousness,  if  personality,  be 
to  us  more  real  than  any  material  world,  it  would  appear 


36  THE  RETUKN  OF  DOGMA 

that  there  is  much  in  life  which  is  still  uncompassed  by 
Science,  for  Science,  and  the  belief  in  inevitable  secular 
causation  upon  which  it  is  based,  can  only  deal  with  the 
data  of  experience,  by  comparison  and  experiment;  the 
personal  experience  itself,  and  the  Self  must  always  be 
assumed  by  Science;  yet,  it  is  just  this  initial  primordial 
experience  which  modern  psychologists  tend  to  treat  as 
secondary  and  causal. 

At  this  point  the  issue  between  the  dogmatic  and  em- 
pirical view  as  revealed  in  the  problem  of  Solipsism 
immediately  arises;  the  problem  that,  if  all  event  occurs 
to  us  only  in  our  consciousness,  it  may  well  be  that  no 
other  person  exists  at  all  except  ourselves  and  that  we  are 
living  in  a  dream  world,  peopled  solely  by  our  own 
imagination. 

Both  for  empirical  reasons  and  on  dogmatic  grounds 
deeper  than  those  of  Science,  we  are  convinced  of  the 
reality  of  others.  So  far  as  regards  the  purely  rational 
basis  for  our  conviction,  it  may  be  stated  thus — we  know 
in  the  world  of  material  event,  that  we  express  ourselves 
outwardly  in  certain  ways ;  we  see  others  do  the  same, 
consequently  we  ascribe  to  others  the  same  operative  per- 
sonality which  we  know  ourselves  to  possess.  This  is  the 
bare  justification  from  causation. 

But  this  argument,  like  all  other  scientific  conclusions, 
makes  many  unprovable  assumptions;  it  assumes,  first 
of  all,  the  validity  of  cause  at  all  as  a  prime  influence.  It 
may  well  be  that  what  causes  others  to  approximate  to 
our  behaviour  arises  from  quite  different  origins.  Next 
it  assumes,  from  definable  physical  behavior,  that  elusive 
indescribable  condition,  personality.  We  can  hardly 
define  our  own  character,  much  less  can  we  say  how  far 
our  actions  and  our  characters  are  consistent;  how  then 
can  we  hope  to  establish  the  personality  of  others  from  a 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  37 

very  partial  glimpse  of  their  external  behaviour?  In 
fact  it  is  not  from  any  scientific  induction,  obtained 
from  observation  of  behaviour,  that  we  come  to  believe 
that  we  are  not  the  only  persons  in  the  Universe ;  our  real 
conviction  arises  not  from  a  comparison  of  data,  but  as  an 
act  of  faith.  We  believe  in  the  reality  of  others  because 
of  an  irresistible  personal  assurance  that  it  is  so.  This 
certainty  is  an  objective  universal  dogma.  In  sympathy 
and  in  love  the  assurance  becomes  quickened  and  the  per- 
sonalities of  others  become  increasingly  real  to  us ;  as  in 
all  true  acts  of  faith,  the  dogmatic  belief  comes  before 
and  not  after  the  logical  demonstration.  We  ask  of 
faith  that  it  should  not  ignore  our  reason,  but  we  are 
dependant  for  our  faith  on  sources  other  than  those  of 
the  rational  intellect  alone. 

In  the  sense  of  fellowship  with  others,  we  realize  our 
first  act  of  faith,  and,  as  we  pass  from  mere  recognition 
to  sympathy,  affection  and  love,  our  faith  in  others  be- 
comes increasingly  strengthened,  and  all  causal  sociolog- 
ical explanation  is  found  to  be  increasingly  inadequate. 

The  implications  of  this  fact  are  important;  for,  if 
there  be  such  a  thing  as  Progress,  if  man  can  be  distin- 
guished from  the  animal,  if  one  man  can  be  greater  than 
another,  it  is  just  in  the  possession  of  that  sympathy  and 
love,  of  that  spontaneous  grace  or  talent,  which  science 
is  unable  to  assess.  Because  it  is  spontaneous,  dependant 
on  some  power  quite  other  than  any  mechanistic  ante- 
cedent cause,  science  cannot  measure,  classify  or  deal 
with  it.  The  more  real  and  deep  is  the  possessed  grace, 
the  less  is  it  susceptible  of  psychological  mensuration. 

It  is  not  alone  in  the  domain  of  human  fellowship  that 
dogmatic  faith  is  more  powerful  than  causal  expectation ; 
the  whole  inspiration  of  the  artist  in  the  cultivation  of 
the  Beautiful  is  similarly  spontaneous  and  cannot  be  man- 

4818  5 


38  THE  RETUR:N'  OF  DOGMA 

ufactured  by  any  prescription  arrived  at  by  inductive 
means.  Thought  itself  is  to  be  valued  in  so  far  as  it  is 
both  original  and  true.  The  sciences  of  ethics,  aesthetics 
and  logic  are  not  creative;  they  catalogue,  they  do  not 
make;  for  the  foundations  of  science  are  in  the  deter- 
mined, but  the  inspiration  of  the  Good,  the  Beautiful  and 
the  True  lie  in  the  spontaneous  and  free. 

It  is,  moreover,  in  the  possession  of  creative  freedom 
in  art,  learning  or  righteousness,  that  we  recognize  the 
achievement  of  a  certainty  far  more  real  than  any  that 
can  be  acquired  by  mechanistic  or  logical  means;  so  far 
is  it  from  being  true  that  the  empiricist  by  experiment  or 
comparative  contrivance  can  discover  Reality  or  a  rule 
of  life,  that,  in  fact,  an  impossibility  of  mathematical 
assessment  in  any  particular  case,  arising  from  the  genius 
of  the  creative  subject,  is  in  itself  some  indication  that 
Will  is  there  enthroned  and  a  close  relation  to  Reality 
established. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  determined  and  of  the  spon- 
taneous; v^e  will  define  more  closely  the  sense  in  which 
the  two  words  are  here  used.  The  material  world,  which 
common  sense  and  Science  seek  to  explain,  consists  in 
the  first  place  of  a  series  of  events,  each  event  in  a  sense 
unique,  but  so  far  resembling  another,  that  a  common 
noun  such  as  ''table,"  or  "chair,"  can  be  employed  to 
describe  their  common  properties,  which  name  is  indeed  a 
prophecy  that  what  the  objects  named  have  been  found 
to  do  in  the  past,  under  certain  circumstances,  they  will 
again  do  in  the  future.  Thus  the  word  "sun"  is  insep- 
arably connected  with  its  daily  appearance  over  the  hori- 
zon, but  the  use  of  the  word  need  not  blind  us  to  the  fact 
that,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  is  no  inherent  reason  why 
the   sun   should   rise   to-morrow   morning.      The   word 


THE  RETUR:N'  of  dogma  39 

"sun"  certainly  gives  us  such  an  expectation,  but  the 
sun  as  an  event  may  always  come  to  disappoint  it. 

Thus  the  whole  structure  upon  which  the  modern  em- 
pirical position  rests,  the  notion  of  inevitable  and  uniform 
causation,  is  based  upon  the  assumption,  which  language 
tacitly  assumes  as  a  basis  for  nomenclature,  that  what  has 
happened  before  will  happen  again,  and  in  no  sense  can 
logic  or  common  sense  claim  any  certainty  greater  than 
this  contingent  or  logical  one. 

Contrast  this  with  the  certainty  of  the  spontaneous, 
which  Personality  with  all  its  fruits,  produces.  Here 
Activity,  not  Repetition,  is  the  principal  characteristic ;  in 
no  sense  can  genius  or  even  character  be  predicted,  and 
it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  only  the  lower  and  fundamentally 
less  real  parts  of  man's  nature  which  can  be  the  subject 
of  prediction  or  of  adequate  definition  at  all  since  they 
alone  display  the  comparative  monotony  of  repetition. 

It  may  be  urged  by  some  that  because  Science  is  as  yet 
incompetent  to  compass  the  higher  reaches  of  our  nature, 
this  arises  from  a  deficiency  of  knowledge  and  in  no 
sense  proves  the  non-mechanical  nature  of  personality. 
It  is  true  that  the  mere  limitations  of  present  science  do 
not  of  themselves  prove  the  reality  of  personal  Will,  but, 
when  it  is  remembered  that  personality  and  Will  are 
themselves  outside  the  Time-Space  process  which  science 
assumes ;  in  which  science  and  verbal  terminology  func- 
tion ;  and  that  the  individual  person  only  uses  these  forms 
for  the  purpose  of  comprehending  event,  it  will  be  rec- 
ognized that  the  spontaneous,  which  is  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word  infinite  in  character,  cannot  be  the  creature 
of  mechanism,  itself  a  finite  compound. 

If  this  be  true,  it  is  not  a  failure  in  degree,  but  in  kind, 
which  prevents  Science  and  language  from  adequately 
describing    personality,    nor    can    any    extension    of    a 


40  THE  RETURN^  OF  DOGMA 

method  based  upon  repetition  come  any  nearer  to  the 
comprehension  of  that  which  is  free,  timeless,  without 
space,  and,  in  the  ordinary  modern  acceptation  of  the 
word,  without  Cause. 

A  Being  of  Will  such  as  the  human  soul,  if  it  is  to 
have  any  supreme  guidance,  must  therefore  seeks  its  in- 
spiration, more  particularly  in  its  personal  creative  acts, 
in  some  assured  fundament  other  than  that  which  derives 
from  mere  knowledge  of  past  or  prediction  of  future 
event.  An  expediency  based  upon  experience,  sagacity 
or  any  other  fundament  which  is  causal  or  empirical  in 
origin,  must  fail  the  free  spirit. 

We  would  prefer  to  claim,  as  a  basis  for  our  assur- 
ance, a  dogmatic  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  the  Good, 
the  True  and  Beautiful,  which  must  almost  necessarily 
lead  us  to  the  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  God,  in  Whom 
these  three  certainties  find  their  culmination,  and,  if  the 
revelation  of  God  by  our  Lord  is  the  incarnation  of  the 
highest  norm  we  can  conceive,  it  is  in  Him  that  we  shall 
presently  discover  our  ultimate  certainty  and  standard. 

It  is  said  of  the  Tichborne  claimant  that,  on  his  exam- 
ination, he  translated  the  words  "Laus  Deo"  as  the  "Laws 
of  God."  In  a  sense  he  was  speaking  more  truly  than 
he  knew,  for,  in  a  sufficient  praise  and  appreciation  of  the 
divine  law  we  may  obtain  our  deepest  insight  into  Reality. 

§  2.     Christian  Dogma 

The  study  of  truth  pursued  in  philosophy  and  logic  may 
be  the  privilege  of  the  few,  but  to  all  men  is  given,  in 
some  measure,  a  dogmatic  understanding  of  the  differ- 
ence between  right  and  wrong,  between  beauty  and  ugli- 
ness. 

Bernard  Shaw,  in  his  play  "Major  Barbara,"  is  scorn- 
ful of  those  who,  having  no  knowledge  or  art  or  philos- 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  41 

ophy,  are  yet  ready  to  make  moral  judgments;  yet,  in 
this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  Shaw  is  but  quarrelling 
with  what  is  a  patent  truth  of  human  nature.  A  child 
will  appreciate  the  difference  between  being  good  and 
naughty,  will  enjoy  beauty,  long  before  he  will  learn  to 
reason,  and  it  is  natural  that  he  should  do  so,  for,  avoid 
it  as  we  may,  it  is  a  fact  which  no  difference  or  scepticism 
can  obscure,  that  the  pursuit  of  goodness  and  beauty  are 
the  fundamental  concerns  of  man. 

Of  late  years  we  have  seen  a  most  courageous  and 
unqualified  attack  upon  the  Christian  rule  of  life  led  by 
Nietzche;  that  master  of  phrase  and  denunciation.  This 
attack  has  once  more  made  clear,  by  antithesis,  the  ex- 
traordinary claim  and  grandeur  of  the  Christian  ideal. 
Broadly  speaking,  the  issue  between  Christianity  and  the 
Nietzchean  creed  is  that  the  one  is  in  essence  paradoxical, 
in  that  it  is  contrary  to  our  animal  nature,  whereas  the 
other  exalts  the  so-called  natural  law  into  a  religion. 
That  power,  pride  and  circumstance  are  fundamental 
goods,  is  affirmed  by  the  Nietzchean  and  denied  by  the 
Christian  ethic,  and  between  these  two  lie  all  those  com- 
promises and  qualifications  which  distinguish  religious 
and  ethical  systems  in  general. 

There  is  in  every  being  a  desire  to  achieve  survival,  a 
desire  which  shows  itself  not  only  in  hum.anity  but  in  all 
nature,  and  this  desire  to  survive  at  any  cost  readily 
develops  in  man  into  an  appetite  to  acquire  dominion  of 
one  kind  or  another  for  selfish  ends  over  others,  and  it  is 
this  desire  for  dominion,  which  is  inherent  in  greater  or 
less  degree  in  all  men,  which  is  fairly  and  dogmatically 
called  by  the  theologians  a  sin. 

The  teaching  of  our  Lord  is  a  repudiation  of  this  sin 
of  dominion,  which  repudiation  shows  itself  in  many 
respects,  ranging  from  martyrdom,  the  abandonment  of 


42  THE  RETUE:N'  OF  DOGMA 

the  natural  wish  for  earthly  survival,  to  courtesy,  the 
voluntary  abstention  from  over  self-assertion.  It  is 
moreover  unique,  in  that,  although  the  notion  of  triumph 
over  animal  nature  is  adumbrated  among  the  Greek  and 
Chinese  moralists  and  finds  expression  in  the  teachings 
of  Aknahton  of  Egypt,  the  paradoxical  completeness  of 
the  teaching,  together  with  an  ungrudging  recognition  of 
the  divine  personality  of  the  teacher,  are  only  to  be  found 
in  that  one  instance  of  the  faith  which  was,  until  recently, 
a  dogmatic  conviction  for  many  millions  of  educated  and 
uneducated  persons. 

Whether  this  ontological  faith  in  the  complete  and 
real  divinity  of  Christ  be  justified  or  not,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  its  presence  yields  an  entirely  different 
quality  to  belief,  whether  for  better  or  for  worse,  than 
arises  from  a  bare  acceptance  of  the  morality  in  itself 
or  from  a  qualifying  arianism  such  as  is  taught  by  many 
humanitarians.  The  jurist  Austin  has  shown  us  how, 
behind  every  operative  obligation,  there  lies  some  sanc- 
tion, punitive,  retributive  or  other;  and  the  absence  of 
sanction,  it  is  believed,  must  in  the  end  tend  to  emascu- 
late faith,  and  render  it  impotent  to  fight  against  the 
allurements  of  power  and  unrestrained  ambition. 

The  mystical  assertion  of  the  equality  of  all  men 
before  God,  inherent  in  the  Catholic  faith,  which  is  the 
negation  of  the  worth  of  secular  dominion,  assumes 
every  man  to  be  capable  of  moral  freedom,  and  assumes, 
moreover,  that  the  value  of  every  man's  judgment  lies 
in  his  sacred  personality;  in  his  possession  of  a  soul, 
and  not  in  any  extrinsic  material  circumstances  of  race, 
rank  or  fortune. 

The  Catholic  must  believe  that  the  gift  of  that  person- 
ality is  certainly  not  a  matter  to  be  predicted  in  mechanical 
terms ;  the  movements  of  the  Holy  Spirit  lie  clean  outside 


THE  RETUKy  OF  DOG^IA  43 

Science  and  Psychology,  for  the  Spirit  is  directly  associ- 
ated with  the  Personality,  which  is  tlierefore  itself  a 
reality  having  no  antecedent  human  cause. 

Thus,  we  are  brought  to  the  dogmatic  belief  again, 
through  the  observation  of  man's  moral  life,  that  the 
freedom  of  the  soul,  which  is  the  liberty  of  God,  is  the 
basis  of  the  whole  human  spiritual  world,  and  that,  so  far 
from  the  deepest  things  of  life  being  material,  the  free 
soul  is  operated  by  the  influence  of  the  Ploly  Spirit  and 
is,  even  in  its  relative  life  on  earth,  itself  spontaneous  and 
immortal. 

It  is  curious  and  typical  of  the  present  confusion  of 
mind,  that  the  modern  sceptical  materialist  should  so 
often  proclaim  himself  a  democrat,  for,  if  the  mystical 
dogma  of  equality  and  grace  and  its  corollary  of  freedom 
be  rejected,  and  man  be  conceived  as  the  creature  of 
circumstance,  there  would  appear  to  be  a  thousand 
reasons  why,  as  a  result  of  breeding,  education  and 
selection,  men  of  varying  degrees  of  value  miglit  be  pro- 
duced. In  this  connection  perhaps  it  is  strange  to  notice 
that  Plato,  the  father  of  Idealism  in  metaphysic,  very 
illogically  accepts  the  whole  deterministic  position,  when, 
in  his  Republic,  he  calls  for  aristocracy  and  the  special 
breeding  of  men. 

It  is  essential,  however,  in  these  matters,  that  we  should 
do  justice  to  the  Stoical  position.  The  Stoics,  like  the 
Christians,  asserted  the  universality  of  man,  his  inherent 
equality  and  right  to  equal  treatment.  And  if,  therefore, 
we  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  only  either  in  the 
egalitarianism  of  the  Stoic  or  the  Catholic  that  the  highest 
morality  is  to  be  found,  we  have  yet  to  show  why  it  is 
that,  in  this  respect,  Stoicism  fails  us  and  Catholicism  is 
adequate. 

The  difficulty  which  was  ever  present  to  the  Stoic  mind 


44  THE  KETUK^  OF  DOGMA 

was  that  the  system  of  universal  justice  for  which  he  con- 
tended lacked  any  dogmatic  or  compelling  basis.  In  vain 
did  he  invoke  that  curious  abstraction,  "The  Law  of 
Nature,"  as  a  justification  for  what  must  seem  to  every 
unprejudiced  person  a  rule  of  life  wholly  paradoxical; 
contrary  to  the  order  of  nature  which  he  invoked;  con- 
trary to  the  policy  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  which  he  ac- 
quiesced; and  contrary  to  the  immediate  interests  of  the 
individual  to  whom  he  preached.  There  arises,  in  con- 
sequence, among  the  Stoics,  as  among  many  modern 
humanitarians,  a  somewhat  sententious  solemnity  and 
joylessness  of  outlook;  indeed  a  fundamental  pessimism, 
against  v^^hich  the  Epicureans  very  naturally  protested 
and  of  which  the  Cynics  made  a  mock.  The  truth  is  that, 
in  the  paradoxical  implications  of  Stoicism  and  Catholic- 
ism alike,  the  demands  for  service  made  by  tliose 
doctrines  can  only  be  sustained  through  a  very  vivid  and 
personal  dogmatic  mysticism  and,  that  such  mysticism 
may  be  in  harmony  with  man's  nature,  it  must  needs  be 
a  mysticism  of  a  very  joyous  kind. 

We  find  in  tlie  moral  sphere  that  a  vast  change  of  out- 
look, absent  in  pagan  sagacity,  is  proclaimed  by  that  great 
dogmatic  ordinance  which  may  be  best  summarized  in  the 
command  "Return  good  for  evil."  It  cannot  be  over- 
emphasized how  entirely  revolutionary,  and,  in  the  sense 
in  which  the  word  has  been  used,  paradoxical,  is  this 
precept;  as  indeed,  is  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  enjoining  man  not  to  seek  his  highest  good 
in  his  own  preservation,  nor  in  wisdom,  caution,  tem- 
perance, or  even  justice,  as  do  the  philosophers,  but  in 
boldly  claiming  from  him  an  entire  subversion  of  his 
lower  nature,  the  repudiation  of  selfishness  and  a  recogni- 
tion of  his  duty  as  a  co-operative  builder  of  God's 
kingdom. 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  45 

The  scope  and  implications  of  the  Catholic  creed  will  be 
discussed  in  this  book  by  others  more  competent  to  deal 
with  the  subject;  for  the  moment  I  am  only  concerned  to 
show  that  not  only  do  we  need  dogma  for  right  living, 
but  that  the  miraculous  dogmas  of  the  Catholic  Church 
are  the  ones  which  we  should  accept. 

It  is  not  denied  for  a  moment  that  the  Catholic  faith 
rests  upon  a  miraculous  basis,  but,  even  if  we  approach 
the  problem  of  Being  from  the  narrower  standpoint  of 
Science ;  it  would  appear  that,  in  the  last  resort,  we  shall 
have  to  invoke  the  notion  of  spontaneous  Will,  akin  to 
the  miraculous,  to  accovmt  for  the  development  of  organ- 
isms, if  not  also  for  tlieir  mere  continuity.  Thus  Bergson 
points  out  very  clearly,  in  his  Creative  Evolution,  that 
variation  and  change  can  only  occur  in  an  organism 
through  the  introduction  of  new  unaccountable  elements, 
and  it  would  appear,  when  the  matter  is  closely  con- 
sidered, that  the  whole  notion  of  development  is  other- 
w^ise  self-contradictory,  in  that,  if  the  tendencies  to 
change  are  only  innate  in  the  beginning,  they  cannot  be 
the  cause  alone,  without  an  external  influence,  of  their 
own  actualization;  while,  if  the  change  is  overt  from  the 
outset,  it  was  strictly  present  from  the  beginning  of  the 
transition  and  there  was  really  no  new  element  of  change 
developed  at  all. 

Nevertheless,  while  tardily  admitting  the  volitional 
element  in  life,  the  full  significance  of  the  spontaneous 
and  unassessable  elements  in  creation  are  apt  to  be 
scouted  even  by  the  most  modern  psychologists  who  con- 
tinue to  apply  to  the  divine  characteristics  of  man, 
methods  which  may  be  suited  to  the  study  of  molecules  in 
in  a  laboratory.^  When,   however,  we  do  unreservedly 

*  The  work  of  Dr.  Berman,  The  Glands  Affecting  Personality, 
is  very  typical  of  this  modern  mentality.    In  it  appears  the  following 


46  THE  RETUR]^  OF  DOGMA 

bring  ourselves  fully  to  appreciate  the  working  of  Will  in 
man,  it  becomes  evident  that  the  essential  value  of  high 
morality  and  art  in  men  and  nations  is  that  it  frees  them 
from  those  mechanical  causal  habits  which  are  called, 
somewhat  unfairly  animal,  for  the  free  pursuit  by  a  free 
personality  of  the  Good,  the  Beautiful  and  the  True.  We 
believe,  as  a  dogma,  that  all  mankind  are  capable  of  this 
emancipation,  and  there  is  considerable  desire  to  admit 
possibilities  of  redemption  to  the  animal  kingdom 
generally,  if  not  to  the  whole  Universe. 

With  this  view  of  a  miraculous  created  world  before 
us,  it  may  appear  extraordinary  to  many,  who  are  not 
Christians  at  all,  that  modernists  should  so  fear  dogma 
that  they  should  be  at  pains  to  modernize  and  explain 
away  that  miraculous  basis  of  life  on  which  not  only 
Christianity,  but  all  art  and  even  all  joyous  living  depend. 

Dr.  Weston,  the  Bishop  of  Zanzibar,  points  out  that, 
even  in  the  Roman  Church,  modernization  and  the 
"symbolical  reading"  of  the  things  defined  by  the 
Vatican  Councils  and  the  Early  Fathers  is  in  rapid 
progress,^  and  the  tendency  to  surrender  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age  in  hypostatizing  causation  is  not  confined  to  any 
particular  Church. 

Despite  the  apologetics  of  modernists,  it  cannot  be  too 
clearly  recognized  by  Catholics,  as  in  deed  it  is  assimied 
by  their  sceptical  opponents,  that  Christianity  is,  emphati- 
cally, a  religion  which  involves  in  its  very  nature  a  full 
and  adequate  dogmatic   recognition  of  the  miraculous. 

passage :  "The  distinction  between  men  of  theoretical  genius  whose 
minds  could  embrace  a  universe,  and  yet  fail  to  manage  successfully 
their  own  personal  lives,  and  the  men  of  practical  genius  who  can 
achieve  and  execute  .  .  .  lies  primarily  in  the  balance  between  the 
ante-pituitary  and  the  adrenal  cortex.  Men  like  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  George  Bernard  Shaw  belong  to  this  ante-pituitary  group." 
^  The  Christ  and  His  Critics,  chapter  i. 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  47 

However  the  idea  of  miracle  may  be  distorted  in  popular 
debate,  it  is  idle  to  deny  that  Christianity,  so  far  from 
asserting  the  rigid  uniformity  of  fate  and  so-called 
"natural"  law.  is  a  standing  qualification  of  it  and  re- 
futation of  its  universality. 

In  the  moral  field,  the  automatic  struggle  for  existence, 
dear  to  the  e\olutionist,  is  supplanted  by  the  paradoxical 
ideals  of  Mercy  and  Love — in  the  material  world,  the 
fatalistic  notions  of  heredity  and  environment  are  con- 
tradicted in  the  belief  in  Personality,  in  social  and  indi- 
vidual Grace. 

If,  then,  the  miraculous  be  that  which  has  no  secular 
antecedent  cause,  at  any  rate  no  finite  calculable  one — 
Christianity,  so  far  from  denying  that  effects  may  be 
produced  immediately  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  asserts  that 
this  miracle  is  not  only  a  common  experience  but  that  such 
inexplicable  ultra-material  intervention,  is  essentially  true 
Reality. 

It  is,  nevertheless,  right,  despite  the  subordination  of 
the  causal  to  the  miraculous,  that  we  should  not  fall  into 
the  error  of  the  Manichaeans  and  despise  the  material,  but 
that  we  should  study  and  endeavour  to  understand  the 
arena  in  which  our  will  contends,  in  which,  as  in  all 
creation,  we  assert  that  the  universal  Will  is  immanent. 

We  have  seen  how  our  whole  causal  life  and  all 
science  and  nomenclature  rest  upon  the  expectation  of 
repetition.  A  noun,  the  name  of  a  thing,  is  a  prophecy 
of  what  the  thing  will  do  in  a  certain  event.  If  we  call 
a  certain  phenomenon  "wood,"  it  is  because  we  impute 
to  it  a  certain  essential  quality,  say  inflammability,  and, 
in  so  doing,  predict  that  under  certain  circumstances  it 
will  burn.  This  is  the  case  with  all  those  common  nouns 
descriptive  of  things  as  events  with  which  we  are 
primarily  concerned  in  discussing  the  miraculous. 


48  THE  RETUKN  OF  DOGMA 

A  statement,  concerning  an  event,  must,  however,  con- 
tain a  verb,  to  describe  the  thing  achieving  its  potenti- 
alities as  well  as  a  noun,  and  it  is  when  this  verb  contains 
descriptions  of  events,  the  possibility  of  which  is  incon- 
sistent, or  thought  to  be  inconsistent,  with  the  essence  of 
the  subject  noun  that  the  question  of  a  miracle  arises. 
We  do  not  normally  impute  to  water  the  quality  of 
becoming  wine.  If,  therefore,  water  change  into  wine, 
our  terminological  basis,  in  the  narrow  sense,  un- 
doubtedly tends  to  fail  us. 

Reliance  on  inevitable  repetition  as  a  universal  rule  of 
life  and  our  logical  apparatus  are  therefore  both  obstacles 
to  a  reception  of  the  miraculous ;  but,  seeing  that,  in  fact, 
the  spontaneous,  which  we  have  recognized  in  Will,  is  the 
negation  of  repetition  and  yet  must  be  admitted  into  our 
experience;  it  would  seem  that  our  logical  equipment, 
which  is  so  largely  based  upon  the  assumption  of  natural 
uniformity,  is  inadequate  to  compass  our  whole  know- 
ledge. 

In  all  metaphysic  this  is,  in  a  sense,  assumed — Philos- 
ophy, like  all  other  verbal  communication,  consists  of 
statements ;  in  every  metaphysical  assertion  there  is  a  sub- 
ject and  a  predicate,  but,  unlike  the  case  of  Science,  in 
Philosophy,  as  in  religion,  the  subject-matter  to  be  ex- 
plained must  contain  all  experience,  and,  unless  the  predi- 
cate exceeds  such  rational  experience,  the  belief  as  to  the 
ultimates  of  knowledge  must  remain  merely  sceptical. 

Thus,  finally,  we  are  driven  to  notions,  which,  by 
reason  of  their  non-causal  and  non-repetitive  nature,  we 
cannot  render  in  complete  predication.  Yet  we  have  seen 
that  it  is  just  in  the  affirmation  of  the  miraculous,  where 
our  logical  equipment  is  inadequate,  that  we  touch 
Reality.  It  is  no  objection  to  our  employment  of  words 
or  arts  to  symbolize  the  real  that  we  cannot  furnish  them 


THE  RETUKN  OF  DOGMA  49 

with  a  complete  connotation,  the  deficiency  lies  in  our  own 
mentality  and  not  in  the  notion ;  we  may  continue  to  use 
arts  and  faith  which  embody  the  miraculous  with  confi- 
dence— the  dogmatic  belief  in  God,  the  divinity  of  our 
Lord,  and  other  sublime  notions  are  not  the  less  real  to  us 
because  we  cannot  give  to  them  a  definition  based  upon 
common  repetitive  Aristotelian  logic. 

Neither  of  the  objections  to  the  miraculous  therefore; 
neither  the  dogmatic  assertion  of  a  fated  repetition  which 
is  avoided  in  tlie  reality  of  experience,  nor  the  objection 
of  a  repetitive  logic  are  sound ;  the  former  is  not  only 
unsound  but  untrue  to  our  experience;  the  latter,  with 
its  insistence  upon  essence  and  accident,  on  noun  and 
verb,  is  based  upon  the  causal  notion  of  universal 
repetition,  and  in  the  last  resort,  stands  and  falls  with 
that  assumption.  It  is,  indeed,  only  in  a  world  ex- 
clusively governed  by  rigid  fate,  that  the  Aristotelian  dis- 
tinction of  essence  and  contradiction,  in  noun  and  verb, 
can  be  maintained. 

Directly  the  free  spontaneous  intervenes,  as  in  the 
operations  of  personality,  love,  beauty  or  grace,  the 
exclusive  logical  causal,  based  upon  an  assumption  of 
repetition,  fails  us ;  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  it  is 
just  at  this  time  that  the  artist  and  the  devout  supplant 
the  scientist  and  logician. 

All  true  art,  like  all  true  faith,  must  recognize  the 
miraculous;  the  sciences  of  aesthetics  and  ethics  have 
proved  their  total  incapacity,  owing  to  their  causal  and 
comparative  method,  to  deal  with  that  which  surpasses 
the  dogma  of  repetition. 

To  summarize,  we  have  experience  of  two  worlds :  the 
one  to  which  the  modern  sceptics  have  exclusively  pinned 
their  faith,  the  repetitive,  causal  and  uninspired,  the 
world  of  appearance;  and  the  other,  the  real  world,  the 


50  THE  EETUKN  OF  DOGMA 

experience  of  which  is  far  more  poignant  and  immediate, 
the  world  of  the  miracle  and  the  spirit,  the  creative 
original  state  which  we  recognize  in  creative  art.  No 
noun  of  generalization  can  hope  to  symbolize  it  ade- 
quately; the  approach  to  the  understanding  of  it  is 
primarily  through  the  certainties  of  inspiration  and 
through  art  and  grace. 

Not  the  least  of  the  endowments  of  the  belief  in 
essential  freedom  is  the  gift  of  Comedy.  Bergson,  in  his 
essay  on  Laughter,  has  pointed  out  how  the  sense  of 
comic  is  founded  upon  the  unexpected.  From  humour  to 
joy  is  an  easy  step,  and  from  joy  to  consolation.  It  is  to 
be  observed  how  those  caricatures  of  Christianity  which 
are  based  upon  the  mechanistic  unchristian  view  of  pre- 
destination unfailingly  produce  their  share  of  the  solemn, 
the  gloomy  and  the  pretentious.  It  is  not  the  least-con- 
siderable advantage  of  spiritual  freedom  that  it  keeps  us 
sweet. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  it  is  in  the  spontan- 
eous miraculous  and  not  in  any  mechanical  system  that 
the  highest  life  consists.  A  Christian  may  therefore 
approach  the  miraculous  basis  upon  which  his  creed 
reposes  with  a  very  real  feeling  that,  whatever  else  may 
be  revealed  by  it,  the  fact  that  it  is  miraculous,  so  far 
from  being  any  argument  against  its  validity,  is  in  itself 
an  earnest  and  an  essential  part  of  the  belief. 

There  have  been  men  who  have  sought  for  a  Beethoven 
in  terms  of  climate,  race,  or  possibly  of  phosphates ;  but 
the  common  sense  of  the  ordinary  man  and  the  intuition 
of  the  imaginative  will  continue  to  regard  genius  as  a 
miracle.  If  then  man,  heightened  by  genius,  can  produce 
great  artistic  results  by  no  material  agency :  how  much 
more  likely  is  it  that  the  Divine  Will,  which  inspires  even 
that  human  one  which  we  find  in  genius,  can  itself,  on  its 


THE  RETURN  OF  DOGMA  51 

own  occasion,  produce  miraculous  changes  in  the  order  of 
nature  ? 

The  miraculous  is  seen  to  show  itself  in  two  forms 
at  least.  There  are  cases  where  the  order  of  nature  has 
been,  and  continues  to  be,  superseded ;  cases  where  we 
should  expect  to  find  spontaneous  Will  still  enmeshed  in 
causal  Substance ;  and  these  miracles  we  believe  to  be  only 
possible  to  the  Author  of  Will  and  Substance  alike,  or 
possibly  to  those  receiving  directly  delegated  powers. 
But,  over  and  beyond  this,  there  remains  the  whole  gamut 
of  the  miraculous ;  varying  from  so  detached  and  vital  a 
case  as  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  to  the  inspiration  of  the 
artist  and  the  smallest  liberation  from  necessity  achieved 
by  any  creature. 

We  have  seen  that,  in  the  last  resort,  what  is  most  im- 
portant in  life  cannot  be  defined  by  reason  or  adequately 
named  in  words,  nevertheless,  it  is  a  necessity  of  our 
nature  to  endeavour  to  obtain  some  certain  postulate  as  a 
guidance  in  affairs  which  we  can  all  share.  All  men  have 
to  act,  and  all  conduct  which  is  at  all  social  must  rest  upon 
a  dogma.  The  true  question  for  us  is  not  one  as  between 
doubt  and  certitude ;  for  all  conduct  rests  ultimately  upon 
temporary  certainty,  but  it  is  a  choice  between  one  con- 
tinuing sufficient  dogma  and  a  series  of  inconsistent  ex- 
periments in  faith. 

The  last  decade  has  been  one  of  anarchy  in  ideal  and 
practice.  Revolt  as  a  good  in  itself :  theosophy,  Christian 
Science,  patriotism,  pacifism,  magic,  spiritualism,  psycho- 
complexities  and  autosuggestions,  beliefs  in  majorities, 
and,  later,  in  minorities ;  all  these  have  in  turn  been 
offered  to  a  bewildered  people  struggling  to  the  light. 
Against  these  ephemeral  doctrines  we  offer  the  old  yet 
ever-living  dogma  of  the  Catholic  Faith  as  a  balm  and 
corrective  to  our  present  discontents. 


52  THE  RETURI^  OF  DOGMA 

We  recognize  in  the  world  an  increasing  desire  for  a 
dogmatic  basis  of  life;  we  realize  the  slow  but  growing 
conviction  that,  in  essentials,  the  faithful  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  despite  their  failures  in  practice,  possessed  a  rule 
of  life  and  a  sense  of  beauty  which  we  are  painfully  en- 
deavouring to  recover.  We  are  not  ashamed  to  preach 
those  old  doctrines  from  which  many  have  turned  as  too 
superstitious  for  their  use.  What  these  doctrines  are  and 
what  their  moral,  social  and  economic  implications,  those 
who  come  after  me  have  endeavoured  to  explain. 


THE     NECESSITY    OF    CATHOLIC 
DOGMA 

BY 

Fr.  L.  S.  THORNTON,  M.A. 

Priest  of  the  Community  of  the  Resurrection,  Mirfield 
Author    of    Conduct    and    the    Supernatnrnl 


54    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 


SYNOPSIS 

1.  The  Failure  of  Modern  Civilization. 

Due  to  its  being  unlike  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Its  characteristics :   secularism,  individualism,  mechanism. 

Its  bankruptcy  and  need  of  redemption. 

The  return  of  Catholicism. 

2.  Redemptive  Value  of  the  Creed. 

Catholic  dogma  the  key.     Return  to  God. 

Catholic  doctrine  of  God  the  necessary  ground  of  society. 

The  redemptive  action  of   God   makes  possible  a  hope   of 

renovation. 
Social  significance  of  the  Creed. 
The  Gospel  miracles  give  a  revelation  of  values. 
They  assert  the  reality  of  God's  freedom. 
They  declare  redemption  to  be  a  divine  work  which  man 

needs  because  he  cannot  reform  himself. 
The  Creed  discloses  the  meaning  of  personality  in  God  and 

in  man. 
Divine  Love. 
The  value  of  human  personality. 

3.  Redeemed  Society. 

Redemption  is  already  a  fact. 

A  new  social  order  appeared  in  the  early  Church. 

It  can  only  be  explained  by  reference  to  an  experience  of 
redemption. 

This  experience  requires  a  theological  explanation  and 
involves  dogmatic  statements. 

The  experience  of  divine  grace  inspires  hope  of  social  trans- 
formation. 

The  Holy  Spirit  transfonns  personal  relationships  from 
within.  The  power  of  the  Cross.  The  indwelling  of 
Christ    Crucified. 

The  Resurrection  of  the  Body  gives  value  to  the  whole 
material  order. 

The  Sacraments  emphasize  the  unity  of  soul  and  body,  re- 
ligion and  the  social  order.  Worship  and  work.  The 
Eucharist  as  symbol  of  Christendom. 


THE  N^ECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    55 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

Previous  essays  have  indicated  that  Society  must  be  rein- 
tegrated upon  a  dogmatic  basis,  and  that  the  common  end 
which  men  must  set  before  themselves  is  the  Christian 
ideal  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Such  a  reintegration 
would  be  "Christendom,"  an  international  world-order 
bound  together  in  a  common  allegiance  to  Christ  strong 
enough  to  transcend  all  barriers.  Such  a  Christendom 
would  possess  its  own  many-sided  culture  penetrating  all 
grades  of  society ;  and  the  whole  would  be  held  together 
by  a  great  common  tradition  of  religious  experience  in 
which  each  individual  has  an  intimate  share.  It  is  a 
fundamental  belief  of  those  who  contribute  to  the  present 
work  that  the  ancient  dogmas  of  Catholicism  provide  the 
only  adequate  basis  upon  which  a  restored  Christendom 
can  be  built. 

I 

The  precarious  condition  to  which  modern  civilization 
has  been  reduced  is  due  to  the  inadequate  foundations 
upon  which  it  has  been  built.  For  it  took  its  rise  in  re- 
action from  an  intensely  theocratic  conception  of  society 
held  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  consequence  of  its  initial 
bias  it  has  always  tended  to  represent  in  a  one-sided  way 
a  quite  opposite  group  of  tendencies.  \\'hatever  we  may 
think  of  particular  embodiments  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 


56    THE  :N'ECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

in  the  past,  it  is  becoming  increasingly  certain  that  the 
failure  of  modern  civilization  is  due  to  its  unlikeness  in 
almost  every  respect  to  any  form  of  society  w^hich  the  idea 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  could  possibly  suggest.  For  the 
root  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  that  human  society 
does  not  exist  either  by  its  own  right,  or  for  its  own  ends, 
but  that  it  has  a  Divine  Ruler  to  whom  it  belongs,  Who 
founded  it  by  His  creative  power,  and  Who  impressed 
His  divine  will  upon  its  constitution.  Dependence  is  thus 
the  aspect  of  human  nature  which  is  emphasized  in  this 
doctrine  of  the  Kingdom.  Man  owes  his  origin  to  the 
divine  will,  and  for  the  realization  of  his  destiny  he  de- 
pends upon  a  wide  all-embracing  purpose  conceived  in 
the  divine  mind.  Society,  grounded  upon  God,  has  thus 
an  ideal  necessary  unity  of  its  own,  and  a  common  end 
towards  which  it  must  move.  And  with  this  common 
recognition  of  God  as  the  ground  of  human  life  goes  a 
mutual  dependence  of  men  upon  one  another.  Men  are 
not  at  liberty  to  do  as  they  like ;  for  they  exist  as  parts  of 
a  larger  social  whole  which  sets  a  limit  to  their  freedom 
because  it  is  itself  the  divinely  appointed  environment  of 
their  life.  A  civilization  which  was  deliberately  framed 
in  conformity  to  this  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
would  necessarily  have  religion  for  its  central  bond.  The 
idea  of  God  would  be  determinative  for  all  other  ideas 
round  which  such  a  civilization  was  built.  All  the  rela- 
tionships existing  in  society  would  be  subordinated  to  a 
moral  ideal,  the  source  of  which  would  be  found  in  the 
character  of  God  Himself.  Religion  would  inform  all 
human  activities,  inspiring  some,  controlling  and  purify- 
ing others,  giving  a  divine  reference  to  all  things  human 
by  persuading  men  that  their  highest  achievements  could 
only  spring  from  faith  and  the  spirit  of  consecration  in  a 
life  of  mutual  service. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    57 

With  such  ideas  as  these,  however,  the  root  principles 
of  our  present  civilization  have  scarely  anything  in 
common.  Modern  society  took  its  rise  from  an  age  of 
humanism  and  individualism;  and  it  has  borne  those 
marks  upon  it  ever  since,  only  developing  them  to  their 
logical  conclusions.  On  its  religious  side  it  has  steadily 
pushed  God  av^ay  into  as  remote  a  position  as  possible. 
Its  typical  theological  systems  made  Him  an  inscrutable 
autocrat,  v^ho  cares  for  a  few  favoured  persons  and  re- 
jects the  vast  majority  of  mankind.  It  has  thus  secular- 
ized one  department  of  life  after  another,  and  divorced 
them  from  all  connection  with  religion.  It  has  torn  God 
from  the  centre  and  placed  Him  on  the  circumference. 
In  His  place  it  has  put  man  as  the  measure  of  all  things. 
Along  with  this  dethronement  of  God  has  gone  the 
doctrine  of  individualism,  one  of  the  cornerstones  of  the 
modern  world.  In  place  of  the  older  doctrine  of  the 
mutual  dependence  of  persons  in  a  common  dependence 
upon  God,  came  another  idea  of  solitary  self-centred  per- 
sonality, which  first  of  all  made  religion  a  private  affair, 
and  so  obtained  religious  sanction  for  the  belief  that 
everything  else  ought  to  be  given  the  same  private  and 
self-centred  form.  The  new  point  of  view  spread  itself 
over  every  sphere,  theoretical  and  practical  alike.  The 
individual  was  conceived  as  a  self-sufficient  unit,  born 
free  and  inheriting  absolute  rights  and  liberties.  Freedom 
in  a  secularized  and  individualistic  world  is  bound  to  be 
interpreted  in  an  irresponsible  sense,  consequently  this 
irresponsible  doctrine  of  liberty  is  in  the  end  seen  to 
involve  the  destruction  of  all  liberties.  What  seems  to 
give  more  scope  to  the  individual  eventually  brings  all 
men  under  bondage  to  necessity  by  making  the  selfishness 
of  the  few  to  be  the  law  of  life  for  the  many.  Thus  we 
are  expected  to  submit  to  economic  laws  which  are  in 


58    THE  :^rECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

reality  simply  the  permanent  tendencies  of  self-interest 
dressed  up  in  solemn  legal  garb.  It  follows  that  justice 
is  replaced  by  sophistry  because  the  sacred  ark  of  egoism 
must  not  be  touched.  To  such  depths  of  fatuity  will  men 
sink  in  their  veneration  for  selfish  superstitions.  But 
where  justice  is  destroyed,  society  must  break  up.  The 
same  must  be  said  of  truth.  The  philosophers  turned  the 
doctrine  of  liberty  to  yet  another  use  by  making  the 
pursuit  of  truth  a  private  affair  of  personal  introspection. 
Here  also  the  self-sufficiency  of  man  was  implicitly 
trusted. 

This  world  of  individualism  was  naturally  a  material- 
istic mechanical  world.  Where  there  is  no  ideal  of 
fellowship,  individualism  must  needs  find  for  itself  a 
more  artificial  and  automatic  system  of  supports,  which 
will  not  demand  the  arduous  exercise  of  social  activity. 
During  the  past  century  men  had  been  led  to  suppose  that 
they  had  secured  such  a  system  in  a  world  of  highly 
elaborated  mechanical  contrivances  which  provided  a 
temporary  basis  of  material  prosperity.  As  long  as  this 
imposing  external  exhibition  continued  it  was  naturally 
interpreted  as  a  sign  that  a  high  level  of  culture  had  been 
attained.  On  the  other  hand,  the  collapse  of  this  artificial 
world  of  mechanism  reveals  strikingly  the  actual  impo- 
tence of  modern  man.  The  real  liberty  which  is  only 
achieved  through  recognition  of  the  mutual  dependence 
of  persons  in  society  has  been  at  a  discount  all  the  time. 
In  such  a  time  of  disillusionment  there  is  real  danger  that 
men  will  cease  to  believe  in  liberty. 

Meanwhile  there  are  signs  at  least  that  the  folly  of 
some  of  these  doctrines  is  being  understood.  Recent 
psychology  lays  emphasis  upon  the  social  aspects  of  the 
individual  and  the  necessity  of  co-operation.  The  indi- 
vidual, we  are  told,  does  not  possess  liberty  naturally, 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    59 

but  must  achieve  it  by  severe  social  effort/  Yet  the  mere 
discovery  of  truer  social  theories  will  not  carry  us  far. 
The  creative  energy,  loyalty,  and  self-sacrifice  which  such 
theories  demand  lie  far  above  the  level  which  the  average 
man  is  capable  of  attaining.  The  old  mythology  of 
natural  goodness  and  inevitable  progress  has  been  ex- 
posed. We  cannot  assume  any  inevitable  process  which 
will  enable  men  to  attain  a  common  mind  and  will.  The 
only  thing  which  appears  inevitable,  humanly  speaking,  is 
a  perpetual  conflict  of  interests  ending  in  catastrophe. 

Indeed,  Professor  Royce  pointed  out  before  the  war 
that  the  problem  of  the  individual  becomes  more  and  more 
acute  as  civilization  develops.  "The  diseases  of  self-con- 
sciousness are  due  to  the  inmost  nature  of  our  social  race. 
.  .  .They  increase  with  cultivation."-  What  Royce 
asserted  of  the  individual  is  equally  true  of  the  nation  and 
of  other  self-centred  groups.  The  pressing  logic  of  facts 
is  making  it  clearer  every  day  that  there  are  disruptive 
tendencies  in  human  nature,  which  are  a  permanent 
danger  to  society.  That  fundamental  self-assertion  of 
the  individual  and  his  interests,  which  is  known  to  theol- 
ogy as  "original  sin,"  is  not  less  prominent  to-day  than 
in  the  past,  and  there  is  not  the  smallest  ground  on  any 
analysis  of  natural  human  resources  for  supposing  that 
it  will  ever  be  anything  else. 

It  is  this  situation  which  calls  loudly  for  a  return  of 
Catholic  Christendom.  Protestantism  is  helpless ;  for  its 
distortion  of  both  religion  and  morality  is  largely  respons- 
ible for  the  actual  state  of  things.  It  destroyed  the  only 
world-wide  fellowship  man  has  ever  known,  and  broke 
up  that  unity  of  belief  upon  which  it  rested.  Now  there 
hardly  exists  any  common  tradition  of  belief  in  respect  of 

'M.  P.  Follett,  The  New  State. 

^  Royce,  Problem  of  Christianity,  vol  i.  pp.  156,  157. 


60    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

either  truth  or  justice  regarded  as  objective  spiritual 
goods.  Reason  divorced  from  faith  becomes  destructive 
of  the  one,  whilst  blind  self-interest  makes  the  other  seem 
impossible. 

Thus  on  every  side  we  see  no  hope  for  the  future  of 
society,  unless  it  can  be  redeemed  from  its  miseries  by 
some  power  beyond  itself;  which  can,  not  only  exorcise 
the  demons  of  proud  self-complacency,  selfish  greed, 
materialism  and  black  despair  which  alternately  fill  it,  but 
also  build  it  afresh  on  altogether  new  foundations.  To 
this  situation  Catholicism  has  its  answer.  Only  God  can 
redeem,  as  He  alone  can  create ;  and  there  is  no  remedy 
for  these  maladies  except  that  which  the  Catholic  Gospel 
provides.  The  misery  and  confusion  of  our  modern 
world  and  the  incapacity  of  all  its  boasted  knowledge  to 
find  any  way  out — all  these  things  are  so  many  signs 
pointing  us  back  to  the  old  foundations. 


II 

The  world  evidently  needs  salvation,  and  it  can  only  be 
saved  by  returning  once  more  to  a  belief  in  God.  Yet  not 
any  doctrine  about  God  will  do.  The  solitary  far-off  God 
of  Unitarian  deism  cannot  help  us ;  for  it  is  that  kind  of 
belief  more  than  any  other,  perhaps,  which  has  robbed  the 
world  of  its  religious  significance  and  left  man  alone  to 
the  slavery  of  self-interest.  Neither  will  the  various  pan- 
theistic systems  be  of  any  use ;  for  they  offer  no  help  from 
beyond  this  world,  and  it  is  precisely  this  world  which 
needs  deliverance.  Nor,  again,  can  we  turn  to  a  limited 
God,  however  much  goodwill  he  may  be  supposed  to 
possess.  A  God  who  is  to  save  the  world  must  be  one 
who  already  controls  and  rules  it,  its  Author  and  Creator, 
who  stands  above  its  weakness  and  confusion,  and  pre- 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    61 

sides  over  its  destinies  with  sovereign  authority.  Yet  He 
must  be  also  One  who  comes  to  the  rescue  of  the  world 
and  acts  with  power  and  purpose,  and  sympathetic  under- 
standing for  its  needs.  Such  is  the  God  whose  self -revela- 
tion is  recorded  in  the  Scriptures,  and  whose  Name  comes 
to  us  through  the  age-long  Christian  tradition.  It  comes 
to  us  in  a  doctrine  embodying  an  immense  range  of 
religious  experience  which  was  the  accepted  foundation  of 
Christendom  for  centuries ;  whilst  the  records  of  its  first 
appearance  in  history  bear  unmistakable  marks  of  a 
divine  revelation. 

When  European  civilization  was  consciously  built  upon 
this  dogma  it  believed  also  of  necessity  in  a  common  ideal 
of  justice  and  fellowship  for  man.  The  one  was  a  conse- 
quence of  the  other.  And  if  we  go  back  to  the  origins  of 
the  doctrine  in  the  Bible,  we  find  that  it  was  the  unveiling 
of  God's  character  and  being  which  was  the  foundation 
of  the  whole  conception  of  a  Kingdom  of  God-  In  the 
minds  of  the  prophets  the  two  ideas  were  inseparable.  As 
the  reality  and  holiness  of  God  were  borne  in  upon  their 
minds,  so  the  vision  of  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  on 
earth  inevitably  followed.  And  when  revelation  reached 
a  more  intimate  stage,  and  God  condescended  to  appear 
on  earth  in  human  form  and  disclose  His  inmost  life  as  a 
fellowship  of  personal  relationships,  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Spirit,  then  a  corresponding  advance  in  man's  social 
ideal  appeared.  A  new  embodiment  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  was  realized  in  the  Apostolic  Church,  in  which  not 
merely  justice  but  a  universal  all-embracing  love  became 
the  accepted  law  of  life. 

But  human  society  needs  not  only  a  revelation  of  God's 
nature  and  character  to  furnish  the  ground  and  standard 
of  its  life.  It  needs  above  all  things  a  power  from  God  to 
enable  it  to  live  according  to  the  ideal  which  is  thus  dis- 


62    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

closed.  It  needs  not  only  revelation,  but  redemption. 
Here,  again,  there  is  no  redemption  adequate  to  its  need, 
save  that  which  is  offered  by  Catholic  dogma.  God  has 
revealed  Himself  by  His  acts  in  history.  He  chose  a 
people  and  trained  them  to  the  knowledge  of  Himself. 
He  preserved  a  remnant  of  them  through  centuries  of 
changing  fortune,  and  kept  alive  in  them  the  conviction 
that  through  their  agency  His  Kingdom  would  finally  be 
established.  Then,  since  the  whole  human  race  whom 
He  created  had  wandered  from  the  right  path  into  a  hope- 
less and  helpless  state  of  sinfulness,  God  intervened  in 
the  course  of  nature  for  its  redemption.  Nature  had 
failed ;  nothing  could  help  it  but  a  new  creative  act  of 
God,  or  rather  a  series  of  acts  unmistakably  supernatural 
in  character.  So  the  Son  of  God  became  Man  and  was 
born  of  a  Virgin,  worked  miracles  upon  earth,  lived  and 
died  and  rose  from  the  dead,  taking  again  His  body  and 
ascending  into  heaven.  So,  too,  on  the  basis  of  these 
redemptive  acts  He  instituted  the  Catholic  Church,  pour- 
ing His  Spirit  into  it  and  so  creating  in  it  a  new  centre 
of  world-wide  fellowship. 

Now,  if  these  events  really  happened,  as  we  firmly 
believe,  then  every  one  of  them  is  charged  with  a  moral 
and  social  significance  of  the  most  overwhelming  kind. 
The  Catholic  Creed  has  suffered  too  long  from  being 
treated  either  simply  as  a  badge  of  orthodoxy,  a  piece  of 
defensive  armour  against  erroneous  beliefs,  or  as  a  sum- 
mary of  remote  events  in  history  which  have  indeed  senti- 
mental associations  for  believers,  but  little  or  no  con- 
nection with  the  problems  of  our  common  life  in  society. 
The  Gospel  was  not  so  regarded  by  the  early  Christians. 
It  was  a  sword  which  cut  them  off  from  pagan  society  and 
dispatched  martyrs  to  their  death ;  a  golden  bond  which 
bound  men  together  in  unworldly   fellowship;  a  moral 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    63 

dynamic  which  turned  the  world  upside  down.  To  many 
people  the  present  capitalist  degradation  of  society  seems 
to  embody  inevitable  laws  which  cannot  be  altered.  In 
a  mechanical  world  everything  encourages  men  to  believe 
that  they  are  go^'erned  by  a  fate  which  leaves  no  room  for 
freedom  either  in  God  or  man.  The  miraculous  events  of 
the  Gospel  are  a  declaration  that  this  view  is  false.  They 
declare  that  God  is  free,  that  so  far  from  being  a  slave  to 
nature's  necessities  He  is  able  to  subordinate  them  to  His 
own  purposes.  The  difficulty  which  men  have  in  appreci- 
ating this  idea  to-day  is  only  part  of  a  general  difficulty 
of  the  imagination  which,  in  an  artificial  machine-made 
civilization,  makes  any  really  creative  act  seem  impos- 
sible. But,  when  once  this  characteristic  is  acknowledged 
to  be  one  of  the  marks  of  spiritual  bankruptcy  in  modern 
life,  the  assertion  of  divine  freedom  in  miraculous  events 
is  seen  to  be  not  only  rational,  but  necessary  if  man's  need 
is  to  be  met  effectually.  The  miracles  of  the  Gospel  are 
thus  symbols  of  the  reality  of  God's  Personality  to  a 
world  which  has  largely  ceased  to  believe  in  personal 
values. 

But,  secondly,  the  Gospel  miracles  also  characterize  the 
nature  of  the  redemption  which  man  needs.  In  the  opti- 
mistic days  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  people  of  all 
views  believed  in  an  inevitable  progress  to  a  social  millen- 
nium by  the  method  of  social  reform,  a  humanitarian  type 
of  religion  was  put  forward  and  became  widely  accepted 
because  it  so  entirely  harmonized  with  this  point  of  view. 
According  to  it  the  Christian  religion  consisted  in  believ- 
ing that  God  is  our  Father,  and  that  all  men  are  brothers ; 
that  Christ  was  a  good  Man  who  taught  this,  and  en- 
forced it  by  His  example.  In  short,  that  He  came  not  to 
redeem  society,  but  to  teach  men  how  to  reform  society. 
And   there   are   still   plenty   of   people  who   think   that 


64   THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

"Christianity"  as  they  call  it  is  "useful  to  society,"  that 
it  is  a  sort  of  medicine  to  be  taken  in  modest  doses  to 
keep  the  social  sickness  from  becoming  too  obvious,  that 
it  is  to  do  the  ambulance  work,  to  encourage  men  in  patch- 
ing up  an  old  world.  If  the  Gospel  is  really  only  a  modest 
programme  of  social  reform  for  a  world  which  can  save 
itself,  then,  indeed,  miracles  are  out  of  place,  and  there 
was  no  need  for  the  Son  of  God  to  become  Incarnate. 
But  this  point  of  view  is  out  of  date.  A  bankrupt  world 
needs  the  assurance  that  it  is  redeemed  by  God  in  spite  of 
itself.  The  miracles  of  the  Gospel  declare  that  redemp- 
tion is  an  act  of  God  from  first  to  last.  Man  can  only 
desire  it,  yearn  for  it,  and  accept  it  gratefully  and  humbly 
when  it  is  given.  Yet  here,  again,  though  it  is  God's  act, 
it  is  not  inevitable.  The  free  act  of  God  does  not  treat 
man  as  a  puppet,  but  rather  makes  possible  his  free  re- 
sponse. Thus  the  Son  of  God  was  born  of  a  Virgin  to 
assure  us  that  the  New  Creation  was  God's  act,  and  not 
man's;  yet  the  miracle  could  not  take  place  until  Mary 
had  freely  accepted  the  Divine  gift,  acting  as  sponsor  for 
us  all  in  this. 

Once  more,  the  method  of  redemption  is  intensely 
.  personal.  It  declares  not  only  the  reality  of  God's  Per- 
sonality, but  the  inmost  meaning  and  significance  of  per- 
sonality in  both  God  and  man.  God  is  declared  to  be  One 
whose  greatness  and  power  is  manifested  in  loving  con- 
descension which  stoops  to  the  dust,  humbles  itself  to  the 
lowest  level,  and  stops  at  nothing  to  achieve  its  purpose. 
God  identifies  Himself  with  the  common  experience  of 
human  life;  accepts  its  drudgery  and  becomes  intimate 
with  the  sordidness  of  sinful  man ;  submits  to  maltreat- 
ment at  his  hands,  and  suffers  Himself  to  be  tested  to  the 
uttermost  in  torture  and  death.  And  the  same  life  which 
gave  a  personal  revelation  of  Divine  Love  also  created  a 


THE  JsTECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    65 

new  idea  of  the  meaning  and  worth  of  human  personality. 
To  our  modern  world  which  exalts  mechanism  and  fate, 
and  despises  the  worth  of  free  personal  life,  for  all  its 
catchwords  of  liberty,  to  such  a  world  the  Life  and  Death 
of  Christ  declare  the  dignity  of  human  nature  and  the 
worth  of  personality  in  man.  If  God  Incarnate  lived  as 
a  poor  man  and  worked  in  a  carpenter's  shop,  and  if  the 
Manhood  in  which  He  did  these  things  suffered  death 
for  all  and  is  now  on  the  throne  of  heaven ;  then  it  is  a 
blasphemous  insult  to  that  Manhood  to  treat  any  man's 
liberty  as  an  indifferent  thing  on  grounds  of  class  or 
colour.  If  the  Son  of  God  took  the  nature  which  is  com- 
mon to  us  all,  and  by  so  doing  declared  the  spiritual  dig- 
nity of  every  human  being,  then  the  present  social  order  is 
an  open  denial  of  Christ;  for  it  condemns  the  majority  of 
mankind  to  be  economic  slaves  ministering  to  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  minority.  To  acquiese  in  it  is  to  crucify  Christ 
afresh.  According  to  His  own  declaration  Our  Lord 
came  to  give  His  Life  as  a  ransom — that  is  to  redeem  men 
from  slavery ;  "to  proclaim  release  to  the  captives,  to  set 
at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised."  We  cannot  set  any  a 
priori  limit  to  this  Gospel  of  emancipation,  such  as,  for 
example,  is  to  be  found  in  the  strange  idea  that  it  is  con- 
fined to  the  salvation  of  the  soul  from  personal  sin,  and 
is  irrespective  of  bodily  and  social  conditions,  however 
inconsistent  these  may  be  with  the  true  dignity  of  human 
personality. 

HI 

It  is  of  vital  importance  to  human  society  that  it  should 
accept  the  revelation  of  personal  values,  divine  and 
human,  involved  in  the  historic  facts  of  the  Creed.  But 
it  is  still  more  important  to  realize  that  the  work  of  man's 
redemption    was    actually    accomplished    through    those 


66    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

events;  and  to  understand  in  what  way  the  power  of  this 
redemptive  work  is  actually  available  to-day  for  the 
renovation  of  our  common  life. 

The  Gospel  of  Christ  was  essentially  one  of  re-creation. 
It  not  only  set  up  a  new  social  ideal.  It  actually  inaugur- 
ated a  new  society,  founded  by  the  creative  act  of  God, 
and  built  upon  His  redemptive  work.  It  is  a  plain  his- 
torical fact  that  in  the  first  days  of  the  early  apostolic 
Church  a  new  social  order  has  already  appeared.  Per- 
sonal relationships  are  on  a  new  footing,  extending  even 
to  communal  possession  of  property.^  In  this  community 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  society  has  already  been 
solved.  The  ideal  of  brotherly  love  is  seen  in  action, 
successfully  realized  as  a  growing  vital  thing  extending 
itself  rapidly  from  place  to  place.  The  new  movement 
produces  also  an  immensely  rich  moral  literature,  con- 
taining an  altogether  new  set  of  ideals  which  are  applied 
to  every  form  of  social  relationship.  The  unit  of  this 
new  society  is  depicted  as  a  new  type  of  character,  un- 
heard of  in  the  world  before,  and  actually  realized  in  a 
pre-eminent  degree.  The  sociological  significance  of  the 
Gospel  declared  itself  at  once  in  its  power  to  produce  a 
unique  kind  of  life  manifested  in  a  new  social  order. 
Here  we  see  in  germ  the  whole  possibility  of  Christen- 
dom, a  realized  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  The  form 
which  this  idea  has  already  taken  in  history  is  discussed 
elsewhere  in  this  book.  We  are  here  only  concerned  with 
the  connection  between  this  new  social  order  and  the 
dogmas  and  facts  of  the  Catholic  Creed.  That  there  is  a 
vital  connection  is  the  universal  conviction  of  the  New 
Testament  writers,  and  of  all  orthodox  Christian  theol- 
ogy since,  representing  a  continuous  and  overwhelming 
weight  of  religious  experience  of  every  age.     The  new 

^  Acts   ii.   and  iv. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    67 

community,  as  soon  as  it  appeared  and  continuously  ever 
since,  has  traced  it  origin  to  an  act  of  God.  It  is  what 
it  is  because  it  is  the  redeemed  community.  Its  common 
life  is  traced  to  a  common  salvation.  Its  members  find 
their  universal  bond  of  fellowship  in  loyalty  to  the  Lord 
who  died  for  their  redemption.  This  fellowship  was 
created  and  is  sustained  by  the  indwelling  presence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  who  conveys  to  all  a  new  life  from  God — the 
power  and  efficacy  of  Christ's  life  and  death  and  resur- 
rection. We  cannot  enter  here  into  the  wide  fields  of 
theological  speculation  and  definition  which  have  arisen 
out  of  these  central  facts  of  Christian  experience.  Nor  is 
it  necessary  to  the  present  argument.  It  is  sufficient  to 
observe  that  the  whole  social  structure  of  Christendom, 
as  it  has  appeared  in  history,  must  be  traced  to  this  ex- 
perience of  redemption.  "If  any  man  be  in  Christ  he  is 
a  new  creature;  old  things  are  passed  away,  behold  all 
things  are  become  new,"  "Ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus." 
These  are  typical  phrases  of  the  New  Testament,  describ- 
ing the  intense  form  which  the  experience  took  in  the 
earliest  days.     From  the  first  it  has  had  three  aspects. 

(a)  It  is  embodied  in  a  redeemed  community,  whose 
members  are  bound  together  in  a  more  intimate  manner 
than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other  form  of  human  society. 

(b)  Within  the  community  redemption  moves  primarily 
along  personal  lines,  rebuilding  individual  character  and 
deepening  the  natural  gifts  of  personality;  yet  in  such 
a  way  as  to  eliminate  selfish  individualism  and  build 
bridges  of  fellowship  and  mutual  dependence.  (c)  The 
redemptive  power  which  is  at  work  is  always  traced  to  the 
action  of  God,  and  therefore  involves  a  theological  ex- 
planation of  the  whole  experience.  It  was  this  third 
feature  which,  by  the  universal  testimony  of  the  earliest 
Christians,  and  by  all  Catholic  theology  ever  since,   is 


68    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

regarded  as  completely  determinative  for  the  Christian 
moral  and  social  order.  For  the  experience  of  redemp- 
tion means  for  the  individual  a  definite  personal  relation- 
ship of  the  soul  to  Christ;  and  it  belongs  to  the  essence  of 
the  experience  that  this  relationship  is  not  self-made.  It 
comes  through  participation  in  the  common  life  of  the 
redeemed  community.  It  is  constituted  by  an  act  of 
Divine  grace  in  baptism.  It  is  personally  realized  and 
appropriated  by  acts  of  faith  in  Christ  as  the  divine  Re- 
deemer from  sin  and  Lord  of  life.  This  faith  is  primarily 
a  personal  attitude  of  devotion.  But  it  is  devotion  to  a 
Person  whose  life  is  shared  by  the  whole  redeemed  com- 
munity, and  has  been  imparted  to  the  individual  soul  only 
through  membership  in  that  community.  By  his  acts  of 
faith,  therefore,  the  individual  shares  in  a  corporate  com- 
munal life  of  faith.  The  object  of  his  devotion  is  a 
historical  Figure  to  whom  the  community  is  linked,  not 
only  by  interior  mystical  experience,  but  by  an  external 
succession  of  historical  events.  Thus  in  the  Catholic 
form  of  experience  there  is  involved  something  else 
besides  the  purely  personal  attitude  of  faith,  which 
Protestants  inculcate.  Inseparable  from  this  personal 
attitude  of  faith  is  an  acceptance  of  the  historical  tradition 
of  the  community  as  to  the  form  which  the  redemptive 
action  of  God  took  in  history.^  For  that  which  binds  the 
community  together  is  their  common  faith  in  God  and 
knowledge  of  Him.  And  for  that  knowledge,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  they  are  dependent,  not  only  upon  a  revela- 
tion, but  upon  the  definite  form  in  which  that  revelation 
was  given  through  a  series  of  redemptive  acts  centering 

'  The  course  of  historical  criticism  has  shown  that  the  modern 
inquirer  cannot  hope  to  get  behind  the  judgment  of  the  original 
community  in  interpretation  of  the  Life  of  Christ,  Cp.  Bethune 
Baker,  Faith  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  chapter  i. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    69 

round  the  historical  figure  of  Jesus  Christ.  This  analysis 
shows  why  dogma  must  always  have  a  fundamental  place 
in  a  social  order  which  is  at  the  same  time  fully  Christian, 
or,  in  other  words,  in  any  adequate  embodiment  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  In  defining  the  idea  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  above,  it  was  said  that  with  a  "common 
recognition  of  God  as  the  ground  of  human  life  goes  a 
mutual  dependence  of  men  upon  one  another."^  In  the 
redeemed  community  we  have  found  that  this  nuitual 
dependence  of  individuals  upon  one  another  through  a 
common  faith  in  God  involves  a  common  acknowledg- 
ment of  dogmatic  statements  about  events  in  history.  To 
this  we  may  now  add  that  besides  assertion  of  events, 
such  dogma  must  include  a  metaphysical  interpretation  of 
events.  For  the  value  of  the  events  for  knoivlcdge  is  that 
their  acceptance  involves  a  particular  view  of  God  and 
His  relations  with  the  world.  The  Christian  social 
values,  then,  are  bound  up  with  an  experience  of  redemp- 
tion which  involves  dogmatic  beliefs.  Dogmatic  state- 
ments, such  as  the  creeds,  express  so  far  as  human 
language  can,  a  body  of  truth  about  God  and  His  dealings 
with  man  which  is  the  basis  of  the  religious  experience 
of  the  community,  and  therefore  the  basis  also  of  that 
type  of  social  life  which  flows  from  such  experience. 
Those  who  seek  to  disengage  the  Christian  social  ideals 
and  their  inspiration  from  their  dogmatic  and  historical 
foundations  are  unscientific,  because  they  ignore  the  testi- 
mony of  those  religious  experiences  which  are  our  only 
source  of  information  on  the  subject.  They  are  also  un- 
practical, because  the  distinctively  Christian  view  of  God 
came  to  us  through  a  series  of  unique  events  in  history, 
and  has  been  preserved  in  dogmatic  form.  To  cut  away 
these  historical  and  dogmatic  elements  means  inevitably 

^  See  page  66. 


70    THE  I^ECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

to  exchange  the  Christian  view  of  God  for  a  vague  doc- 
trine of  immanent  spirit  which  has  no  sort  of  answer  to 
the  social  problems  of  our  day.  For  if  God  has  not 
shown  us  that  He  transcends  the  sequence  of  natural 
events,  then  we  have  no  ground  for  any  hopes  or  aspir- 
ations which  transcend  the  natural  tendencies  of  civiliza- 
tion as  we  see  them  at  work  to-day. 

But  those  whose  outlook  is  inspired  by  the  Catholic 
Creed  are  able  to  hope  confidently  for  a  social  regenera- 
tion which  utterly  transcends  the  resources  of  human 
nature,  because  they  find  at  work  in  themselves  creative 
influences  which  are  precisely  of  this  supernatural  quality. 
They  believe  that  they  share  in  a  fellowship  in  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  dwells.  They  believe  that  He  pervades  the 
personal  life  of  each  member  of  the  community.  In  their 
personal  experience  of  the  workings  of  His  grace  they  find 
a  close  analogy  to  the  miraculous  events  of  the  Gospel. 
For  them  grace  is  not  simply  a  vague  immanent  influence 
assisting  the  nobler  impulses  of  human  nature.  Such 
an  idea  as  that  must  always  be  in  conflict  with  their 
normal  experience.  For  the  deepest  element  in  that  ex- 
perience is  not  simply  achievement  of  successful  advance 
in  the  development  of  character,  but  a  repeated  impact  of 
divine  power  upon  human  weakness.  As  ideals  are  pitched 
high,  so  the  sense  of  natural  human  insufficiency  to  attain 
them  is  intensified.  Yet  failure  is  met  again  and  again  by 
the  miracle  of  divine  forgiveness,  which  absolves  them  of 
the  past  and  renews  in  them  that  reconciliation  with  God 
which  is  the  basis  of  their  life  in  the  community.  Thus 
chains  of  habit  are  broken  and  new  beginnings  are  con- 
tinually made.  At  every  moral  crisis  there  descends  upon 
the  vacillating  human  will  in  its  hour  of  temptation  a 
power  more  than  human,  which  recreates  energy  and  re- 
news hope  of  possibilities  beyond  natural   expectation. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    71 

Thus  moral  progress  is  experienced,  not  as  an  achieve- 
ment in  conformity  with  nature,  but  as  a  divine  gift  which 
comes  from  beyond  nature,  and  which  carries  the  will  to 
its  end  in  defiance  of  natural  tendencies.  And  the  action 
of  grace  is  experienced  as  a  series  of  supernatural  events, 
each  of  which  embodies  the  creative  power  of  God;  the 
whole  series  transcending  the  ordinary  series  of  natural 
events,  to  which  it  stands  in  the  strongest  possible 
contrast. 

This  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  human  personality 
opens  the  way  to  the  transformation  of  all  personal  rela- 
tionships, for  its  range  covers  the  whole  community,  and 
its  tendency  is  to  bring  all  into  conformity  with  the  moral 
ideal  embodied  in  the  life  of  Christ.  But  here  we  must 
note  that  this  does  not  mean  simply  a  process  of  imita- 
tion. It  is  true  that  one  of  the  bonds  uniting  Christians 
together  is  their  recognition  of  a  common  standard  of 
morality.  The  foundations  of  that  standard  were  laid  in 
the  Old  Testament,  and  it  was  set  forth  finally  in  personal 
form  in  the  life,  acts,  and  words  of  Jesus  Christ.  But 
neither  obedience  to  a  moral  code  nor  imitation  of  the 
highest  ideal  of  character  are  in  themselves  sufficient  to 
break  down  the  barriers  of  individualism,  to  eliminate 
the  isolating  effects  of  egoism,  and  to  weld  men  together 
into  a  living,  world-wide,  moral  fellowship.  Even  social 
psychology  is  abandoning  this  artificial  and  external  idea 
of  imitation.^  Moreover,  it  would  offer  a  very  inade- 
quate explanation  of  the  interior  action  of  grace  which 
we  have  been  considering.  For  the  Holy  Spirit  who  thus 
transforms  personality  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  His  mis- 
sion in  the  Church  is  to  reproduce  in  human  personality, 
not  simply  the  principles  or  virtues  exhibited  in  the  life 
of  Christ,  but  that  very  life  itself.     If  virtue  were  men's 

^Follett,  op.  cit. 


72    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

true  good,  then  grace  would  only  need  to  bring  them 
into  conformity  with  an  ideal  pattern  of  humanity.  Such 
a  process  would  only  be  one  of  sanctified  self-culture. 
Its  end  would  be  nothing  but  the  self-centred  perfection 
which  formed  the  ideal  of  pagan  ethics.  But  it  is  the 
mission  of  the  Spirit  to  destroy  such  egoism,  which  is 
the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  reign  of  God  over  human 
society.  Moreover,  regarded  simply  as  an  ideal  example, 
the  life  of  Christ  could  never  be  the  pattern  of  mere 
ethical  self-realization.  For  the  outstanding  feature  of 
His  earthly  life  is  the  sacrifice  of  the  Cross;  and  the 
Cross  makes  havoc  of  all  merely  moral  solutions  of  the 
social  problem.  It  repudiates  the  various  naturalistic 
western  doctrines  ancient  and  modern,  which  all  alike 
postulate  self-centred  personality  as  the  unit  of  society. 
But  it  repudiates  also  the  idea  of  self-renunciation  as  an 
end  in  itself,  or  for  any  lesser  end  than  the  highest.  The 
Cross  declares  as  its  principle  the  sacrifice  of  self  to  the 
glory  of  God,  the  surrender  of  self  for  the  achievement 
of  the  divine  purpose.  This  is  a  unique  sociological 
principle  which  can  never  proceed  from  a  doctrine  of  the 
natural  immanence  of  divine  Spirit.^  It  means  the  sur- 
render of  self,  not  to  the  spirit  immanent  in  human 
society,  but  to  Him  who  is  above  both  self  and  society,  at 
whose  bar  both  must  stand  for  judgment.  It  means  the 
surrender  of  self  to  One  whose  will  is  the  basis  of  objec- 
tive right  for  all  men.  Yet  self  is  not  surrendered  to 
abstract  right,  for  the  movement  is  on  the  higher  plane 
of  personal  relationships.  And  thus  it  is  that  human  life 
is  actually  achieved  and  finds  itself  through  the  surrender 
which  the  Cross  claims  from  it.     For  it  is  only  by  the 

*  The  idea  that  it  can  be  grafted  on  to  such  a  doctrine  is  the  mis- 
take made  by  Royce  in  The  Problem  of  Christianity.  It  is  also 
perhaps  the  characteristic  error  of  current  theological  modernism. 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    73 

sacrifice  of  self  in  surrender  to  the  divine  will  that  the 
egoism  of  self  can  be  destroyed  in  such  a  way  that  per- 
sonality is  liberated.  Sacrifice  for  any  lesser  end  would 
be  dangerous.  But  in  yielding  himself  to  God  a  man 
yields  himself  to  the  divine  purpose  for  human  society, 
and  becomes  truly  himself  in  the  measure  in  which  he  is 
made  one  with  that  purpose.  Thus  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Cross  embodies  the  deepest  law  of  personal  life. 

Now,  according  to  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  redemption, 
the  Son  of  God  brought  this  life-principle  of  the  Cross  out 
of  the  inner  life  of  God  down  to  the  level  of  man,  and 
there  wrought  it  out  Himself  in  His  own  life  as  an 
achievement  at  once  divine  and  human.  As  God  He  did 
what  man  by  himself  never  could  do;  and  yet  He  did  it 
also  as  Man  on  behalf  of  mankind.  It  was  fitting  that 
He  who  was  born  of  a  Virgin  by  a  new  creative  act  of 
God  should  thus,  by  another  divine  creative  act  through 
His  death,  bestow  upon  mankind  a  new  spiritual  posses- 
sion, something  so  great  and  ultimate  that  it  has  never 
been  adequately  defined  in  words ;  but  which  makes  pos- 
sible at  once  the  reconciliation  of  man  with  God  and  of 
men  with  one  another.  We  must  pass  over  deeper 
questions  involved  in  this  mystery  of  atonement  and  con- 
fine ourselves  here  to  one  fact.  In  the  redeemed  com- 
munity the  Holy  Spirit  imparts  to  human  personality  the 
life  of  Christ;  not  merely  its  life-principle  of  sacrifice, 
nor  its  human  perfections,  but  the  actual  divine  life  of 
Him  in  whose  image  man  was  made  and  for  whose  glory 
he  exists.  Nothing  less  than  this  can  be  claimed  as  the 
inner  meaning  of  the  experience  of  redemption.  Yet 
that  which  is  imparted  is  the  life  of  Christ  crucified;  and 
it  is  the  Spirit's  mission  to  reproduce  the  life  of  the 
Crucified  in  all  men.  Thus  the  aim  of  the  Gospel  is,  in 
the  first  instance,  neither  to  make  men  moral  nor  even 


74    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

social,  but  to  reintegrate  the  broken  fragments  of  human- 
ity by  infusing  into  them  the  life  of  God.  The  infused  life 
is  a  crucified  life  which  reproduces  the  mark  of  the  Cross 
upon  human  personality,  making  it  flexible  and  capable 
of  fellowship  through  self-surrender.  Yet  the  surrender 
is  first  of  all  to  God.  It  is  not  a  social  compromise ;  but 
a  consecration  of  personality  to  Him  who  is  the  ground 
of  both  self  and  society.  Thus  all  human  relationships 
are  to  be  harmonized  by  a  way  which  leads  all  men  back 
to  God. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  considering  the  transformation 
of  personal  relationships  in  society  through  an  interior 
redemption  of  personality.  But  the  body  and  its  out- 
ward connections  have  also  a  fundamental  place  in  the 
scheme  of  redemption.  All  social  relationships  are 
through  the  medium  of  our  bodily  life.  A  full  redemp- 
tion of  man,  therefore,  will  take  into  its  scope  the  whole 
social  structure  and  all  the  outward  order  of  human 
life  as  it  is  lived  in  the  body.  The  dogma  that  "the  Word 
was  made  flesh"  declares  the  goodness  and  value  of 
everything  that  belongs  to  the  common  life  of  man  and 
its  outward  expression.  It  reasserts  the  truth  of  Cre- 
ation that  "God  saw  everything  that  He  had  made,  and 
behold  it  was  very  good."  The  same  truth  is  emphasized 
in  another  way  by  the  miracle  of  the  Resurrection.  The 
body  of  the  Lord  was  raised  from  the  tomb  as  a  natural 
corollary  of  all  that  had  gone  before.  When  the  Son  of 
God  took  a  human  body  to  Himself,  He  proclaimed  the 
sacredness  of  everything  belonging  to  man's  bodily  life. 
When,  therefore.  He  had  completed  His  redeeming  act 
of  sacrifice  on  the  Cross,  His  spiritual  victory  was  most 
appropriately  declared  not  merely  in  survival  of  the  soul, 
but  in  a  resurrection  of  the  body.  In  this  way  it  was 
made  plain  that  the  whole  of  human  life,  body  as  well  as 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    75 

spirit,  had  been  redeemed.  Again,  it  was  upon  this  fact 
of  the  resurrection  that  men's  faith  chiefly  rested  in  the 
days  when  the  new  social  order  first  appeared.  On  the 
strength  of  this  fact  they  looked  for  a  new  era  upon 
earth.^  To  those  who  believe  in  the  resurrection  it  is 
natural  to  hope  for  a  redemption  of  society.  For  it  fol- 
lows from  this  article  of  the  Creed  that  material  things 
have  a  permanent  spiritual  value  and  significance,  and 
that  there  can  be  no  true  redemption  of  man's  life  unless 
his  material  existence  be  included.  The  same  truth  is 
enforced  by  the  institution  of  the  sacraments,  which 
Catholics  value  highly  because  they  bring  the  bodily  life 
into  the  heart  of  religion,  and  make  the  most  solemn 
religious  acts  to  have  a  deeply  social  character.  Accord- 
ing to  Catholic  doctrine  the  sacraments  are  means 
whereby  we  receive  divine  grace  through  material  things. 
Though  people  do  not  always  understand  the  social  sig- 
nificance of  the  Creed  they  profess  as  could  be  wished, 
the  sacraments  are  generally  understood  among  Catholics 
to  mean  that  religion  is  a  social  force  which  has  affinity 
with  all  true  interests  of  human  life  and  that  it  is  cap- 
able of  lifting  these  things  to  a  higher  level.  The  same 
cannot  be  said  of  those  changes  in  religion  which  Protest- 
antism introduced,  and  upon  which  it  has  nourished  our 
present  civilization.  For  it  reduced  religion  to  a  private 
pietism  which  concerned  the  soul  of  man  and  not  his 
body,  the  individual  and  not  society  as  a  whole;  which 
set  out  to  touch  only  a  little  circle  of  personal  duties, 
not  to  effect  the  redemption  and  consecration  of  all  that 
adorns  human  fellowship.  It  reduced  theology  to  a  ra- 
tionalism which  was  unfettered  by  respect  for  common 
tradition.  Thus  it  dissolved  the  authority  of  dogma, 
and  left  men  free  to  build  up  all  the  relationships  of  life 
'Acts  iii.  13-21. 


76    THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA 

on  a  basis  of  opportunism  and  self-interest.  Deeply 
rooted  in  this  type  of  religion  is  the  Manichean  tendency, 
which  divorces  the  soul  from  the  body,  because  the 
material  world  is  thought  to  be  unworthy  of  being  yoked 
to  the  life  of  the  spirit.  This  tendency  lies  behind  almost 
everything  that  is  degrading  in  our  modern  civilization. 
It  has  developed,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a  culture 
which  is  introspective  and  subjective  in  form;  and  it  has 
handed  over  the  external  world  to  a  mechanism  separ- 
ated from  spiritual  values,  which  mocks  and  denies  all 
efforts  of  the  human  spirit  to  recover  control  over  it. 

In  contrast  to  this,  Catholicism  with  its  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  asserts  that  the  subject  to  be 
redeemed  is  not  simply  the  soul,  but  the  whole  world 
of  human  personality  with  its  unity  of  body  and  spirit. 
A  social  order  based  on  Catholic  dogma  would  therefore 
reverse  the  whole  of  that  tendency  which  in  our  present 
order  drives  a  wedge  of  separation  between  spiritual  real- 
ities and  the  material  structure  of  society.  That  separ- 
ation vitiates  everything  at  present.  It  narrows  the 
scope  of  religion  and  hinders  it  from  its  natural  function 
of  maintaining  justice,  liberty,  and  fellowship,  and 
inspiring  simplicity,  craftsmanship,  and  art  in  every 
activity  of  life.  It  makes  culture  aristocratic  and 
science  materialistic.  In  religion  those  who  have 
lost  the  sacramental  tradition  often  find  it  hard  to-day 
to  see  any  value  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  This 
is  natural  enough ;  for  it  is  only  Catholicism  which,  by 
making  sacraments  the  centre  of  religious  experience, 
provides  its  adherents  with  a  constant  present  exper- 
ience of  the  dignity  of  material  things  and  their  capa- 
city for  becoming  the  medium  of  spiritual  values.  Above 
all  in  the  central  rite  of  the  Eucharist,  where  the  highest 
religious  act  takes  place,  there  is  set  forth  a  living  symbol 


THE  NECESSITY  OF  CATHOLIC  DOGMA    77 

of  what  a  restored  Christendom  would  be.  In  that  rite 
the  redemptive  value  of  God's  sacrificial  love  is  declared 
to  be  the  basis  of  a  new  human  fellowship.  It  is  a 
world-wide  fellowship  of  all  men,  in  which  all  have  the 
same  privileges  without  distinction  of  nationality,  sex, 
or  class,  because  all  are  sons  and  daughters  of  God,  and 
as  such  are  admitted  to  His  banquet  in  perfect  equality. 
They  hold  communion  with  God  and  with  one  another 
through  material  gifts  of  Bread  and  Wine;  a  sign  that 
there  can  be  no  true  life  of  the  spirit  which  is  not  demo- 
cratic and  social,  capable  of  expressing  itself  through  the 
common  acts  and  habits  of  daily  life.  As  this  rite  centres 
round  the  simplest  and  most  universal  acts  of  man — 
eating  and  drinking,  so  a  restored  Christendom  will  take 
for  its  norm  not  the  power  and  interests  of  the  few,  but 
the  elemental  needs  of  the  common  people.  This  sacra- 
ment of  simple  acts  is  surrounded  by  Catholics  with  all 
the  external  beauty  and  dignity  which  human  art  can 
devise.  So,  too,  in  a  restored  Christendom  all  the  com- 
mon acts  of  daily  life  and  labour  will  be  redeemed  from 
their  present  dependence  upon  a  degrading  economic 
system,  which  stifles  the  workers'  natural  pride  in  good 
work  by  depriving  them  of  any  human  interest  in  their 
tasks.  Worship  and  work  will  be  redeemed  from  their 
present  separation ;  for  work  will  be  done  in  the  spirit  of 
a  great  common  act  of  worship.  Each  individual  will 
contribute  to  the  whole  the  best  that  is  in  him  according  to 
his  capacity  and  in  harmony  with  the  common  need. 
Thus  a  whole  world  of  human  skill  and  creative  power 
will  be  redeemed  from  slavery  to  selfish  material  inter- 
ests, and  will  furnish  a  sacrifice  acceptable  to  God  and 
beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  men. 


THE     RETURN     OF     "THE     KINGDOM 
OF  GOD" 

BY 
Rev.   P.   E.   T.  WIDDRINGTON 

Rector  of   Great   Easton,   Dunniow 


80  THE  RETURN  OF 


SYNOPSIS 

The  influence  of  the  Church  negHgible,  not  because  of  its  divi- 
sions, but  because  it  is  not  agreed  as  to  the  essential  nature  of  its 
Gospel.  If  it  is  to  regain  its  moral  authority,  its  first  duty  is  to 
make  the  fundamental  character  of  its  message  clear.  Is  the  Chris- 
tian Gospel  nextworldly  or  otherworldly?  Is  it  world-denying  or 
world-affirming?    The  apologia  of  Troeltsch  an  acknowledgment  of 


Our  Standpoint. 

The  breakdown  of  Western  civilization  due  to  the  renuncia- 
tion of  God  by  the  nations.  The  decadence  of  personal  morality 
the  inevitable  consequence  of  the  abandonment  of  religious 
sanctions  as  the  basis  of  national  life.  Christian  living  postulates 
the  background  of  a  common  life  in  which  Christian  values  are 
embodied :  the  primitive  Church  and  its  organization ;  the 
Mediaeval  Church  and  its  doctrine  of  the  two  polarities  of 
God's  activity.  Revealed  religion  gives  scanty  countenance  to 
the  notion  that  spiritual  values  are  independent  of  social  justice. 
The  Manicheism  of  the  religious  world  not  less  than  the  Materi- 
alism of  the  non-religious  world  responsible  for  the  present 
condition   of  things. 

The  purpose  of  this  essay  to  demonstrate  the  Kingdom  of 
God  as  the  essential  character  of  the  Gospel,  and  that  upon  the 
effective  republication  of  the  Gospel  depends  the  fate  of 
civilization. 

The  Kingdom  of  God. 

A  phrase  with  a  history:  embodies  the  purpose  of  God  in 
relation  to  the  world.  St.  Augustine's  argument  in  The  City 
of  God.  The  Theocratic  idea.  The  function  of  The  Law. 
Montefiore  quoted.  The  struggles  of  the  two  centuries  before 
Christ  and  the  development  of  the  sense  of  Divine  Purpose  in 
history.  The  conflict  one  between  Religion  and  Materialism. 
The  Apocalyptists. 

The  phrase  "The  Kingdom  of  God"  cannot  be  understood 
apart  from  its  context.  Attempts  made  in  Christian  circles  to 
evacuate  the  phrase  of  its  content,  and  make  it  a  synonym  for 
personal  salvation  and  immortality.  Dr.  Glover's  Christ  of 
Experience. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  81 

Tendency  of  the  religions  world  to  import  into  the  Gospels 
its  own  mentality — it  confuses  Jamnia  with  Galilee.  The  mean- 
ing of  "basileia"  to  the  average  Jew  of  our  Lord's  day:  a 
dominion  inseparable  from  a  domain.  To  the  Jew,  what  was 
at  stake  was  not  the  Sovereignty  of  God,  but  the  actualization 
of  that  sovereignty  in  the  world.  The  preaching  of  John  the 
Baptist :  practical  not  speculative.  Josephus  on  the  cause  of 
John's  imprisonment. 

The  Teaching  of  Our  Lord. 

He  did  not  define  "the  Kingdom":  assumed  that  men  knew 
what  it  meant.  Spoke  as  one  who  saw  the  meaning  of  Israel's 
ideals  and  whose  interpretations  were  based  on  "the  mind  of 
the  Divine  Author  of  the  Law."  Emphasized  the  requirements 
of  the  Kingdom  on  the  individual :  a  new  righteousness  and  a 
new  citizenship.  Nevertheless,  His  purpose  not  the  salvation 
of  the  individual  as  such,  but  his  redemption  into  the  Kingdom 
of  God.     Luke  xviii.  20,  21  discussed. 

The  Kingdom  a  God-given  Kingdom :  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Father.  Cannot  be  established  by  force.  "Force  no  attribute 
of  God."  Our  Lord's  dissociation  of  Himself  from  the  turbulent 
and  ugly  nationalism  of  the  time.  Although  the  gift  of  God, 
admits  the  co-operation  of  human  wills. 

The  Kingdom  the  Vision  of  Reality.  Mr.  Glutton  Brock's 
book.  This  aspect  of  the  teaching  belongs  to  the  early  period 
of  the  ministry.  Conversion,  the  result  of  the  vision  of  the 
Kingdom. 

The  clarifications  of  the  Kingdom  idea  made  by  our  Lord: 
its  universality  and  its  recognition  of  sex  equality. 

The  second  stage  of  the  teaching:  after  Csesarea  Philippi. 
In  the  first  stage  the  Kingdom  outlined:  the  method  of  its 
achievement  occupies  the  second.  In  what  sense  was  the  Mes- 
sianic consciousness  of  our  Lord  a  development?  Mark  ii.  18- 
20,  Luke  iv.  16-22  from  the  outset  associates  the  Kingdom  with 
His  person  and  work.  His  alleged  hesitancy  in  avowing  His 
Messiahship.  His  reticence  and  reserve.  His  transformation 
of  the  received  ideas  of  the  Messiah  more  drastic  than  His 
treatment  of  the  Kingdom.  For  the  Messiah  of  tradition  He 
substituted  Himself:  the  Suffering  Servant  of  Deutero-Isaiah, 
and  prepared  for  the  Baptism  of  the  Passion — the  seal  of  His 
Messiahship.  The  Kingdom  came  out  of  the  Passion,  the  Cross, 
the  Resurrection,  and  the  .Ascension.  It  has  no  dynamic  signif- 
icance apart  from  them.  It  is  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  which 
gives  to  His  teaching  of  the  Kingdom  its  essentially  "new" 
character. 


82  THE  EETURN  OF 

The  Kingdom  and  the  Church. 

The  Church  a  corollary  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  The 
Messianic  Kingdom  implies  the  continuance  of  a  covenanted 
society.  F.  D.  Maurice  on  the  Church  as  the  child  of  the 
Jewish  polity.  Dr.  Hort's  view  of  the  relation  of  the  Church 
to  the  Kingdom.  The  view  of  the  first  Christians.  Apart  from 
our  Lord's  claim  to  be  Messiah,  no  doctrine  of  the  Church  in 
the  Gospels. 

The  effects  of  the  transference  of  the  Gospel  to  Gentile  soil. 
Gradual  disuse  of  the  phrase  "Kingdom  of  God."  St.  Paul. 
The  phrase  infrequent  in  apostolic  literature.  This  no  proof 
that  the  hope  of  the  Kingdom  abandoned.  Dr.  Burkitt's  con- 
trast between  Reformed  Rabbinism  and  early  Christianity. 
Chilianism :  its  influence  and  ultimate  condemnation.  St.  Aug- 
ustine registered  the  close  of  the  process  by  which  "not  of 
this  world"  became  "not  for  this  world." 

Conclusions. 

The  paramount  task  of  the  Church  to  remaster  its  message. 
Not  "the  Gospel"  but  "the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom."  .... 
The  Kingdom  of  God  regulative  of  our  theology,  the  cardinal 
doctrine  of  our  preaching  and  the  touchstone  by  which  all  the 
activities  of  the  Church  are  tested.  This  will  involve  a  second 
Reformation. 

Obstacles  in  the  path  of  making  the  Kingdom  the  regulative 
idea  of  theology.  The  work  of  the  Ritschlian  School  and  the 
prejudice  aroused.     Dr.  Orr's  view.     Dr.  Candlish. 

The  defence  of  the  Catholic  Faith  calls  for  a  new  apologetic. 
The  two  foes  to-day,  Manicheism  in  the  Church  and  Material- 
ism in  society  must  be  met. 

The  Church  exists  to  promote  the  Kingdom,  not  to  replace 
it.  Neglect  of  this  truth  marred  the  great  achievement  of 
Mediaeval  Christendom.  The  Church  became  a  usurpation  and 
then  a  tyranny.  The  Church  and  its  conception  of  sanctity. 
Detachment  no  excuse  for  shirking  life's  responsibilities.  The 
revival  of  "vocation"  as  expressing  the  Christian  demand  on 
the  ordering  of  society.  The  price  of  industrialism  is  the 
souls   of   men. 

The  Church  must  ever  witness  to  the  God-givenness  of  the 
Kingdom.     Ozanam  and  the  two  theories  of  Progress. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  83 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  RETURN  OF  'THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD" 
At  this  time  of  economic  and  political  crisis,  the  influ- 
ence of  organized  Christianity  on  the  affairs  of  the  world 
is  almost  negligible.  The  cause  is  to  be  sought,  not  in 
the  divisions  of  the  Church — they  furnish  a  contributory 
cause — but  in  the  patent  fact  that  the  Church  is  not 
agreed  as  to  the  fundamental  character  of  the  Gospel. 
Before  it  can  hope  to  regain  its  moral  authority  over  the 
nations,  it  must  first  arrive  at  a  common  understanding 
concerning  the  essential  nature  of  its  message.  Is  the 
Christian  religion  next  w^orldly  or  other-worldly?  Is 
it  a  world-denying  or  a  world-afiirming  faith?  The 
widest  divergence  of  opinion  exists  on  these  questions, 
and  bewildered  by  the  uncertain  voice  with  which  the 
Church  speaks,  men  are  ceasing  to  look  to  it  for  any 
guidance  in  practical  affairs.  Of  what  avail  is  it  for 
the  world  to  turn  to  the  Church  when  they  are  told,  by 
one  of  the  foremost  living  Christian  apologists,^  that 
"Christianity  has  retired  to  the  depths  of  the  inner  life, 
and  at  the  same  time  risen  to  a  height  which  transcends 
State  and  War  and  Culture — the  union  of  souls  in  a 
sphere  above  the  earth,  the  sphere  of  the  Highest  and  the 
Ultimate?  From  thence  Christianity  still  overcomes  the 
world." 

*  Troeltsch,  quoted  by  Von  Hugel,   The  German  Soul,  p.   106. 


84  THE  RETURN  OF 

To  the  writers  of  these  essays  the  stupendous  dis- 
array of  European  civilization  is  due  to  the  renunciation 
of  God  by  the  nations,  and  their  repudiation  of  the  Cath- 
olic tradition  of  the  vassalage  of  every  nation  to  the 
Kingdom  of  God/  To  us,  the  decadence  of  personal 
morality,  believed  by  the  devout  within  the  Churches  to 
be  due  to  the  weakening  of  Faith  in  dogmatic  religion, 
is  the  inevitable  aftermath  of  the  abandonment  at  the 
Reformation  of  religious  sanctions  as  the  basis  of  social 
and  international  life.  That  Christian  morality  survived 
so  many  centuries  is  a  testimony  to  the  social  ethics  of 
Christendom. 

Christian  living  postulates  the  background  of  a  common 
life  in  which  Christian  values  are  embodied.  In  Holy 
Scripture  the  revelation  of  God  is  conditioned  by  the 
existence  of  just  relations  among  men.  To  this  the  New 
Testament  is  no  less  a  witness  than  the  Old.  Early 
Christianity  exhibited  the  phenomenon  of  an  organized 
community  with  a  life  of  its  own.  The  Mediaeval  Church, 
by  its  doctrine  of  the  two  polarities  of  God's  activity — 
the  State  and  the  Church — secured  the  recognition  of  the 
essentially  religious  character  of  the  economic  and  other 
relations  of  society.  Revealed  religion  does  not  ask  men 
to  make  bricks  without  straw.  One  of  the  points  by 
which  it  is  differentiated  from  the  religions  which  men 
have  made  for  themselves  is  that  it  inheres  in  the  com- 
mon life,  and  gives  scanty  countenance  to  the  notion 
that  spiritual  and  moral  values  are  independent  of  social 
justice.  In  modern  times  the  religious  world  has  suffered 
from  over-refinement:  a  result  to  some  extent,  in  this 
country,  of  its  bourgeois  environment.  In  the  Ages  of 
Faith  this  over-refinement  would  have  been  called 
"Manicheism."      By    whatever    name    it    is    called,    its 

*  Wisdom,  vi.  1-9. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  85 

results  have  been  disastrous.  They  can  be  repaired  only 
by  a  return  to  the  central  doctrine  of  Our  Lord's  teach- 
ing— the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  purpose  of  this  chapter 
is  to  demonstrate  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  the  essential 
character  of  the  Gospel ;  as  a  social  conception  at  every 
stage  of  its  development;  and  that  the  revival  of  the 
influence  of  the  Church  on  national  and  international 
affairs  will  follow  when  once  the  Kingdom  of  God 
becomes  the  regulative  idea  of  our  theology  and  prop- 
aganda :  to  demonstrate,  in  a  word,  that  upon  the  effec- 
tive republication  of  the  Gospel  depends  the  fate  of 
civilization. 

"The  Kingdom  of  God"  is  a  phrase  with  a  history. 
Saint  Augustine  argues  in  "The  City  of  God"^  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  of  which  Christianity  is  the  comple- 
tion, has  always  existed  ever  since  there  were  men,  and 
that  it  has  a  connected,  though  sometimes  hidden  exist- 
ence, during  the  whole  course  of  history.  It  is  the  motif 
which  runs  through  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  makes  of 
the  Bible  one  book.  The  religion  of  Israel  derived  its 
unique  force  amongst  the  religions  of  the  ancient  world 
by  reason  of  its  faith  in  the  sovereignty,  the  Kingship  of 
God,  and  His  purpose  for  human  life.  It  is  the  glory 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  apocalyptists  that  they  con- 
sciously apprehended  and  developed  the  idea  around 
which  the  hopes  of  all  mankind  centre.  What  dis- 
tinguished the  Jewish  people  from  the  other  peoples  of 
antiquity  was  not  "monotheism,"  but  their  unswerving 
conviction  that  this  world  was  meant  to  be  the  scene  of 
a  Divine  Order  with  ramifications  in  every  department 
of  life.  They  were  the  chosen  instrument  through  which 
this  Divine  Order  was  to  be  achieved.  The  sin  and  the 
misery  of  the  world  was  that  it  was  living  apart  from  the 

^De  Civitate  Dei,  xviii,  47. 


86  THE  RETURN  OF 

Law  of  God.  Their  devotion  to  the  Law  rested  on  the 
belief  that  the  Law  was  given  by  God  as  the  means  of 
enabling  men  to  live  in  just  relations.  "The  Law  was 
not  a  mere  external  law,  fulfilled  from  fear  of  punish- 
ment and  for  hope  of  reward.  It  was  the  law  of  the 
All-Wise  and  all-righteous  God,  given  to  Israel  as  a 
sign  of  supremest  grace.  It  was  a  token  of  divine  affec- 
tion and  its  fulfilment  was  the  highest  human  joy."^  The 
struggles  of  the  two  centuries  before  Christ  intensified 
these  convictions.  The  conflict  of  Judaism  with  Grseco- 
Roman  civilization  was  not  merely  the  conflict  of  one 
civilization  with  another.  It  was  the  conflict  between 
religion  and  materialistic  civilization,  fought  on  national- 
istic lines.  To  the  Jew  with  his  unbroken  tradition  of 
the  Living  God — the  "I  will  become  what  I  will 
become"^ — it  was  justice,  God's  justice,  for  which  he 
fought,  and  for  the  Moral  Law  revealed  by  God  as 
opposed  to  the  mores  of  the  Gentiles.  In  those  two  cen- 
turies the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  exercised  an  increasing 
influence  on  Jewish  thought.  It  was  the  heroic  epoch 
of  their  national  life.  The  Jews  played  a  more  prominent 
part  on  the  world's  stage  than  they  had  ever  occupied. 
It  was  the  turn  which  Jewish  history  took  more  than  any 
conscious  process  of  thought  which  led  to  the  explication 
of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom,  or,  as  it  was  commonly 
called  in  the  apocalyptic  writings,  "the  coming  age." 
The  world  of  the  apocalyptists  was  a  larger  world  than 

'  Montefiore,  Synoptic  Gospels,  ii.  513. 

'  "I  will  become  what  I  will  become,"  Dr.  Burney  in  Contentio 
Veritatis,  p.  181.  The  name  Jehovah  seems  to  mean  "He  who  will 
become,"  and  that  passage  (Exodus  iii.  13-15)  in  which  the  name 
is  elucidated  by  the  statement,  "I  am  what  I  am,"  or  rather,  "I 
will  become  what  I  will  become,"  implies  that  no  words  can  ade- 
quately sum  up  all  that  the  God  of  Israel  will  become  to  His  chosen 
people,  etc.    The  reference  is  to  Driver  in  Studio  Biblica  i.  pp.  12  flf. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  87 

that  of  the  prophets.  In  the  Book  of  Daniel,  as  Mr. 
Edvvyn  Bevan  has  pointed  out,  "the  great  Gentile  King- 
doms, like  the  Greek  supremacy  of  the  Seleucids  and  the 
Ptolomies,  which  seemed  so  overwhelming  and  terrible, 
are  shown  as  phases  in  a  world  process  whose  end  is 
the  Kingdom  of  God."^  The  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  perceived  to  mean  more  than  the  triumph  of  Israel : 
it  is  triumph  of  Religion  over  Materialism,  the  visible 
justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  "The  true 
and  universal  religion  must  be  born  of  a  nation,  but  it 
must  rise  above  it."" 

It  is  not  germane  to  this  essay  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  the  phases  through  which  the  Apocalyptic  Hope 
passed.  The  point  I  desire  to  emphasize  is  that  "The 
Kingdom  of  God"  in  the  Gospels  is  a  phrase  with  a  his- 

^Jerusalm  under  the  High  Priests,  p.  86.  Cf.  The  Beginnings  of 
Christianity,  Foakes  Jackson  and  Kirsopp  Lake,  p.  278.  "The  fact 
that  the  exact  phrase,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  is  not  found  earlier  than 
the  Gospels,  though  the  idea  represented  by  it  in  the  Rabbinic 
literature  is  drawn  from  the  Prophets,  renders  it  impossible  to  say 
with  certainty  what  the  phrase  must  have  meant  in  the  Gospels, 
and  to  use  this  meaning  for  their  interpretation.  The  only  reason- 
able method  is  to  interpret  each  passage  in  which  it  is  found  in 
accordance  with  its  context." 

'  Dr.  Glover  in  his  recent  book.  The  Christ  of  Experience,  is  an 
example  of  this  tendency  in  modern  theology. 

"Messiah  was  done  into  Greek,  and  became  more  a  personal  name 
than  a  description.  ...  So  while  the  title  'Christ'  survived,  the 
'Kingdom  of  God'  fell  into  the  background,  and  in  spite  of  efforts 
being  made  to  bring  it  forward  again,  it  is  possible  to  maintain  that 
'salvation'  was  an  expression  that  could  carry  a  larger  burden  of 
Jesus'  meaning.  .  .  .  What  interested  the  Greek  was  not  the 
restoration  of  a  kingdom  to  a  generalized  Israel,  or  anything  else, 
in  the  plural  or  abstract,  but  the  development  of  his  own  soul,  mind, 
and  nature,  and  its  securing  amid  all  the  changes  of  worlds  and 
aeons"  (pp.  36,  7  and  8). 


88  THE  RETURN  OF 

tory,  and  cannot  be  understood  apart  from  that  history. 
For  so  much  that  has  been  written  and  is  currently 
believed  in  Christian  circles  either  ignores  the  history  of 
the  phrase  or  assumes  that  our  Lord  used  it  in  a  way  and 
placed  upon  it  a  connotation  which  divorced  it  from  its 
previous  associations.  To  all  intents  He  might  have 
coined  the  phrase,  or  adapted  any  other  which  would 
have  expressed  His  ruling  ideas  of  the  sway  of  God  in 
the  life  of  the  individual,  salvation,  and  immortality.  To 
interpret  the  Kingdom  of  God  apart  from  its  context  is 
to  cut  off  the  teaching  of  Jesus  from  the  great  religious 
tradition  out  of  which  it  arose  and  of  which  it  is  the  ful- 
filment. Jettison  the  belief  that  "God  at  sundry  times 
and  in  diverse  manners  spake  in  time  past  unto  the 
prophets,"  and  you  undermine  the  faith  of  the  Catholic 
Church  that  "in  these  last  days  He  hath  spoken  unto  us 

It  is  because  the  revival  of  the  Kingdom  as  the  regulative 
principle  of  our  theology  and  the  motive  of  our  propaganda  will 
purge  the  Church  of  associations  with  the  modern  equivalents  of 
Mystery  Cults,  Neo-Platonism,  etc.,  and  maintain  the  Catholic  belief 
in  the  Old  Testament  as  containing  a  revelation  independent  of  the 
revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  we  stress  the  necessity  of  insisting 
on  the  historical  antecedents  of  our  Lord's  teaching. 

Cf.  also  Stalker's  Christology:  "...  Although  Jesus  published  His 
Gospel  under  the  form  of  a  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  He  did  this  strictly  on  His  own  motion  or  rather 
under  stress  of  circumstances,  adapting  His  teacliing  to  the  modes 
of  thought  current  in  His  time"    (p.  25). 

Notice  the  curious  remarks  on  p.  166:  "To  many  Christians, 
living  under  republican  forms  of  government,  the  very  name  is 
foreign  and  out  of  date.  Whatever  be  the  case  in  Germany,  to  our 
ears  the  phrase  as  a  name  for  Christianity  has  a  sound  of  preciosity 
and  make-believe;  and  there  are  far  better  names  for  the  same 
thing.  .  .  .  Jesus,  before  the  close  of  His  life,  outgrew  it;  and  His 
teaching  seems  always  trying  to  escape  from  its  fetters.  .  .  .The 
phrase  belongs,  in  short,  to  the  'body  of  humiliation'"    (p.  165). 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  89 

by  His  Son."  Historical  Christianity  rests  on  the  affirm- 
ation, "Salvation  is  of  the  Jews." 

The  tendency  of  the  religious  world  is  to  import  into 
the  Gospels  its  own  mentality.  Its  long  sojourn  at 
Jamnia^  puts  it  at  a  grave  disadvantage  in  any  attempt 
to  explore  a  situation  in  which  religion  was  very  inti- 
mately bound  up  with  material  things.  The  truth  of  this 
observation  is  demonstrated  by  a  study  of  the  bulk  of 
the  interpretations  which  have  been  made  of  the  phrase 
"the  Kingdom  of  God."  That  the  word  translated 
basileia  means  literally  "Reign,"  and  not  the  sphere  in 
which  the  reign  is  exercised,  is  true.  But  to  assume  that 
in  our  Lord's  day  it  meant  "reign,"  rather  than  a  definite 
sphere  and  polity  in  which  tlie  reign  should  be  actualized, 
to  any  but  a  handful  of  pedants,  is  grotesquely  untrue. 
To  the  average  Jew  the  term  connoted  a  dominion  insep- 
arable from  a  domain.^  The  proclamation  of  the  Sover- 
eignty of  God,  conceived  as  apart  from  the  ordering  of 
this  world  in  righteousness,  could  not  have  been  made 
the  occasion  of  a  preaching  which  secured  a  hearing  from 

^Jamnia  was  the  village  to  which  Johanan  ben  Zakkai  retired 
during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  and  where  he  settled  to  the  task  of 
reforming  the  Rabbinic  religion  by  purging  it  of  apocalyptic  beliefs. 
The  apocalyptic  beliefs  passed  into  the  keeping  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Dr.  Burkitt  has  drawn  a  striking  contrast  between  Re- 
formed Rabbinism  and  Early  Christianity  {Jewish  and  Christian 
Apocalypses,  pp.  12-13).  Modern  Christians  would  be  much  more 
at  home  in  the  vineyard  at  Jamnia  than  in  the  fiercely  expectant 
atmosphere  of   the  early  Christian   Churches. 

"Stanton,  The  Jeivish  and  the  Christian  Messiah,  p.  217.  "Con- 
nection with  the  Old  Testament  preparation  and  Jewish  hopes  fur- 
nishes a  complete  answer  to  those  who  would  translate  'Reign' 
instead  of  'Kingdom  of  God.'  Kingdom  includes  both  ideas,  that 
of  His  royal  authority  and  of  the  realm  over  which  He  rules ;  and 
both  should  be  included.  Cf.  also  Burkitt  in  Interpreter,  vol.  vii. 
No.  4,  p.  14. 


90  THE  RETURN  OF 

Jews  of  the  first  century.  The  Jew  had  always  believed 
in  the  sovereignty  of  God.  What  was  at  stake  was  the 
realization  of  that  sovereignty  in  the  world.  "The 
Kingdom  of  God,"  to  the  masses  of  our  Lord's  contem- 
poraries, meant  the  outward  manifestation  of  God's  sov- 
ereignty, by  His  overthrow  of  the  evil  powers  which  held 
the  world  in  thrall  and  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom 
in  which  the  ancient  hopes  of  God's  people  should  be 
fulfilled.  Such  was  the  substance  of  the  Messianic  idea. 
It  had  been  vulgarized  by  politicians,  physical  force 
revolutionaries,  and  by  apocalyptists.  The  bitter  struggles 
for  national  freedom  and  the  bloody  reprisals  they  had 
brought  had  made  the  Jew  vindictive  and  revengeful. 
He  thought  of  God  as  an  ally  in  his  schemes  of  national 
aggrandisement.  He  forgot  the  nobler  teaching  of  the 
prophets.  To  a  not  inconsiderable  section  of  the  Pales- 
tinian populace,  insurrection  had  become  a  business,  with 
brigandage  as  a  side  line.^ 

There  were  circles  in  which  "the  Hope  and  promises 
made  to  the  fathers"  had  lost  none  of  its  purity — devout 
coteries  at  Jerusalem  and  elsewhere.  Political  unrest  and 
the  opinion  that  the  Messianic  Kingdom  could  not  be 
long  delayed  were  widespread.  Everywhere  there  was 
a  tense  atmosphere  of  expectation.  This  is  evident  from 
the  immediate  response  evoked  by  the  preaching  of  the 
Baptist.  The  burden  of  his  preaching  was  the  imminence 
of  the  Kingdom,  and  an  insistence  on  the  moral  repent- 
ance of  the  individual.  Only  the  righteous  Israelite  could 
hope  to  enter  into  the  blessings  of  the  new  order.  The 
interest  of  the  Baptist  was  practical.  His  mind  was  not 
speculative.  He  said  nothing,  as  far  as  we  know,  to 
correct  or  amplify  the  current  notions  of  the  Kingdom. 
His  concern  was  with  the  portentous  fact  that  the  King- 

^  Josephus,  Antq.,  xvii.  10,  8, 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  91 

dom  was  near,  and  that  men  must  make  themselves  ready 
for  it.  That  the  political  revolutionaries  made  capital 
out  of  John's  preaching  to  fan  the  flames  of  rebellion  is 
probable,  and  borne  out  by  the  statement  of  Josephus 
that  Herod  threw  John  into  prison  "lest  his  influence 
might  lead  to  some  revolt"^ 

It  is  important  for  the  argument  of  this  essay  to  notice 
that  the  Baptist  and  our  Lord  are  in  agreement  on  a 
vital  point  concerning  the  Kingdom.  They  use  the  phrase 
as  one  which  rec[uires  no  definition.  Both  assume  that 
men  know  what  it  is.  In  our  Lord's  teaching  "the  fre- 
quent formula  'the  Kingdom  of  God  is  like'  refers  not  to 
the  nature  of  the  Kingdom,  but  to  the  conditions  on  which 
it  must  be  entered,  the  character  of  its  members,  the 
manner  of  its  progress,  the  signs  of  its  coming,  etc." 
There  is  nothing  in  the  Gospels  to  show  that  our  Lord 
meant  by  "the  Kingdom"  something  substantially  dif- 
erent  from  what  it  meant  to  the  men  of  his  generation. 
If  He  did,  then  it  was  a  mistake  to  have  used  the  term. 
There  were  others  He  might  have  employed :  "the  Good 
Time,"  "the  Days  of  the  Messiah,"  or  "the  Age  to 
Come."  His  deliberate  adoption  of  the  phrase  brought 
him  at  once  into  touch  with  the  common  people  stirred 
to  enthusiasm  by  the  Baptist's  preaching.  Our  Lord 
was  never  at  home  with  the  professionally  religious  and 
the  "cultured."  This  may  have  been  a  reason  why  He 
chose  the  phrase  in  which  the  common  man  summed 
up  his  faith  in  God  and  the  world.  But  the  real  reason 
of  His  choice  was  that  it  linked  on  His  teaching  to  that 
of  the  prophets  and  carried  with  it  a  scriptural 
consecration.^ 

From  the  outset  of  His  ministry,  our  Lord  stands  out 

^Josephus,  Antq.,  xviii.  5,  2. 

^  E.  F.  Scott,  The  Kingdom  and  the  Messiah,  chapter  iv. 


92  THE  RETURN  OF 

as  an  independent  teacher.  He  speaks  as  an  authoritative 
interpreter;  one  who  sees  the  meaning  of  Israel's  ideals 
and  elucidates  and  clarifies  them.  His  claim  is  to  fulfil 
the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  There  is  no  hesitancy  in  His 
claim.  His  rulings  are  "based  on  the  mind  of  the  divine 
author  of  the  Law."^  He  places  a  new  emphasis  on  the 
aboriginal  and  illimitable  worth  of  the  individual.  He 
stresses  and  elaborates  the  requirements  the  Kingdom 
makes  on  those  who  would  be  its  citizens.  For  the  legal 
righteousness  of  His  day  He  substitutes  the  new  right- 
eousness of  the  Kingdom  with  its  motive  "that  ye  may  be 
the  sons  of  your  Father  in  heaven."  Although  insistent 
on  the  inalienable  value  of  the  single  soul,  He,  neverthe- 
less, teaches  that  the  purpose  of  the  Father  is  not  primar- 
ily the  salvation  of  individuals  as  such,  but  their  union 
in  the  redeemed  society  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The 
Kingdom  never  ceases  to  be  a  collective  hope :  a  concep- 
tion involving  the  life  of  man  in  all  its  relations  "as 
broad  as  human  life,  as  deep  as  human  need."  The 
attempt  that  has  been  made,  on  the  strength  of  one  say- 
ing, to  make  the  Kingdom  merely  a  synonym  for  an  in- 
ward state  of  blessedness  must  now  be  regarded  as  a 
failure.^  Not  even  the  authority  of  Matthew  Arnold  can 
save  it. 

The  Kingdom  is  the  Kingdom  of  the  Father.  It  rests 
on  the  character  and  nature  of  God.  From  the  beginning 
it  has  been  the  purpose  of  God  in  history  to  permeate  the 
life  of  man  with  the  principles  which  belong  to  His  char- 
acter :  to  educate  man  into  correspondence  with  "the 
world  of  invisible  laws  by  which  He  is  ruling  and  blessing 

^  Kirsopp  Lake,  op.  cit.  p.  294. 

^  Luke  xviii.  20  Cf.  Shailer  Mathews,  The  Social  Teaching  of 
Jesus,  p.  46  (note)  ;  E.  F.  Scott,  of.  cit.  p.  108  ff;  Plummer's 
St.  Luke.  p.  406. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  93 

His  creatures."^  Men  have  not  of  themselves  the  power 
to  establish  the  Kingdom.  It  cannot,  for  instance,  be 
established  by  force.  "Force,"  as  an  early  Christian 
apologist  well  said,  "is  no  attribute  of  God,"  The  King- 
dom requires  the  consent  of  human  wills.  But  while  the 
Kingdom  is  the  gift  of  God  and  His  work,  its  coming 
can  be  accelerated  by  the  faith  and  co-operation  of  men. 

How  decisively  our  Lord  dissociated  Himself  from  the 
turbulent  nationalism  of  his  day  is  brought  out  in  the 
indignant  question  he  puts  to  those  who  carried  out  his 
arrest.  "Are  ye  come  out,  as  against  a  robber  (ws  eVt 
XrjaTTjv)  with  swords  and  staves  to  take  me?"  krujr'q^  is  not 
the  word  for  an  ordinary  robber,  but  for  a  member 
of  a  guerilla  band.  The  "Penitent  Thief"  who  was 
crucified  with  our  Lord  was  a  member  of  such  a  band. 
His  repentance  was  repentance  in  the  strict  sense  of 
metanoia.  He  had  been  a  believer  in  the  cruder  forms 
of  nationalism.  The  reproaches  which  he  and  his  com- 
rade hurled  at  Jesus  were  for  not  having  helped  them  in 
their  revolt  against  the  foreign  oppressor.  As  he  hung  on 
his  cross,  he  came  to  understand  the  true  nature  of  the 
Kingdom,  and  hails  Jesus  as  its  Messiah.^ 

There  is  an  aspect  of  our  Lord's  teaching  to  which 
sufficient  attention  has  not  been  paid :  the  Kingdom  as 
the  Vision  of  Reality.  It  may  belong  to  the  first  stage 
of  the   teaching — the   stage  which    Baron   Von    HugeP 

'  Hort,  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  p.  273. 

'  Cf.  the  illuminating  remarks  in  The  Beginnings  of  Christianity, 
Part  I,  p.  289  ff.,  on  our  Lord's  definite  opposition  to  the  policy  of 
armed  rebellion  against  the  foreign  oppressor,  and  the  significance 
of  the  "non-resistant"  teaching  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Also 
Savage's  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom,  p.  6.  Plummer's  St.  Luke  (Inter- 
national Critical  Commentary),  on  Luke  xxiii.  39-43,  and  West- 
cott's  Some  Lessons  of  the  R.V.,  p.  76. 

'  Von  Hugel,  "Essay  on  Progress  in  Religion"  in  Progress  and 
History,  edited  by  F.  S.  Marvin,  p.  114. 


94  THE  EETUKN  OF 

describes  as  "predominantly  expansive,  hopeful,  peace- 
fully growing,"  to  the  stage  of  "the  plant  parables,  full 
of  exquisite  sympathy  with  the  unfolding  of  natural 
beauty,"  but  it  is  not  to  be  neglected.  Whatever  may  be 
the  defects  of  Mr.  Glutton  Brock's  book,  What  is  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven?  it  has  recalled  to  us  this  fact,  that 
our  Lord  insisted  that  the  Kingdom  was  something 
which  men  might  see,  if  they  would,  here  and  now.  The 
pure  in  heart  shall  see  God,  and  God  is  to  Christ  "the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  in  its  utmost  intensity,  the  reality 
at  the  heart  of  that  reality."  Conversion  as  He  taught 
it  is  the  result  of  the  vision  of  the  Kingdom :  it  is  a  change 
of  mind  under  a  new  impression  of  the  facts  of  life,  a  new 
orientation.  Our  Lord  always  speaks  as  one  who  sees 
the  Kingdom.  He  is  amazed  at  the  blindness  of  those 
about  Him. 

'Tis  ye,  'tis  your  estranged  faces 

That  miss  the  many  splendoured  thing. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  His  attitude  towards  the 
class  distinctions  of  his  time,  and  His  identification  of 
Himself  with  those  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden.^ 
He  illustrated  in  His  own  conduct  the  new  law  of  brother- 
liness :  "love  on  the  footing  of  equality."  Nor,  again, 
need  we  insist  on  the  sternness  of  his  views  on  riches 
and  of  the  effects  of  covetousness  on  the  soul.  But  there 
are  two  clarifications  of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  which 
must  be  noticed :  its  universality  and  its  recognition  of 
sex  equality.  Jesus  transcended  the  narrow  nationalism 
of  contemporary  Judaism.  The  new  wine  of  the  King- 
dom fermenting  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  broke  the  old  bottles 

*  Our  Lord  and  His  disciples  must  have  been  regarded  by  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  among  the  ame  ha-ares.  Cf.  Beginnings  of 
Christianity,  App.  E.  on  "The  Am  Ha-ares." 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  95 

of  Jewish  particularism.  John  had  insisted  that  not 
descent  from  Abraham,  but  moral  righteousness  was  the 
passport  into  the  new  order.  Our  Lord  carried  the  teach- 
ing of  John  to  its  logical  conclusion.  If  moral  righteous- 
ness were  the  passport,  then  men  everywhere  had  "king- 
dom capacity."  The  field  of  the  kingdom  was  the  world. 
The  second  clarification  was  not  less  astounding:  the 
admission  of  women  to  equality  of  citizenship.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  case  amongst  the  Jews  of  the  Disper- 
sion, Palestinian  Judaism  had  steadily  depressed  the  status 
of  women.  Our  Lord  brushed  on  one  side  the  traditions 
of  men.  He  recognized  no  superiority  of  the  male  per- 
sonality over  that  of  the  female.  He  appealed  to  both 
men  and  women  with  the  same  arguments.  The  most 
profound  of  all  his  sayings  was  addressed  to  a  woman. 
His  attitude  surprised  His  disciples  as  greatly  as  it  of- 
fended His  opponents.  "They  marvelled  that  He  talked 
with  a  woman. "^  What  is  of  paramount  importance  to 
the  understanding  of  our  Lord's  teaching  of  the  King- 
dom is  His  own  relation  to  it.  Never  was  this  more  the 
case  than  at  the  present  moment. 

We  have  seen  that  our  Lord  grouped  his  teaching 
around  the  idea  on  which  all  the  hopes  of  His  people  had 
come  to  centre.  He  follows  up  the  preaching  of  the 
Baptist.  He  develops  His  work.  He  comes  forward 
as  a  reinterpreter  of  the  Law,  and  elucidates  its  meaning 
by  a  criticism,  humane,  penetrating,  inspired.  He  re- 
awakens the  sense  of  vision  in  a  people  in  whom,  owing 
to  the  weight  of  an  authoritarian  religion,  vision  was 
almost  dead.  He  revitalizes  the  doctrine  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  men  understand 
that  the  Kingdom  was  dependent  on  the  loving  purpose 
of  God,  and  that  on  that  purpose  rather  than  on  the 

*  St.  John  iv.  27. 


96  THE  RETUKN  OF 

activities  of  men  rested  the  certainty  of  its  achievement. 
Lastly,  we  have  glanced  at  two  instances  illustrating  the 
clarifications  our  Lord  effected  in  the  current  concep- 
tions of  the  Kingdom.  But  so  far  we  have  dealt  with 
only  one  stage  of  the  teaching. 

The  incident  at  Csesarea  Philippi  is  the  dividing  line 
between  the  two  stages  of  our  Lord's  ministry.  In  the 
first  stage  the  Kingdom  has  been  outlined.  The  method 
of  its  achievement  is  now  the  dominant  theme.  From  now 
onwards  the  Messianic  character  of  the  Kingdom  is  in- 
creasingly stressed.  The  term  "Son  of  Man"  is  used 
in  a  definitely  Messianic  sense.  The  Passion  is  predicted. 
Our  Lord  sets  Himself  to  two  tasks:  to  brace  Himself 
for  the  Baptism  which  awaits  Him  at  Jerusalem  and  to 
prepare  the  minds  of  the  disciples  for  the  supreme  revela- 
tion of  the  Love  and  Power  of  God. 

The  division  of  our  Lord's  ministry  into  two  stages 
does  not  imply  that  in  the  earlier  stage  He  had  no  know- 
ledge of  His  Messiahship.  It  does  imply  that  that  know- 
ledge underwent  growth.  In  this  it  differed  from  His 
sense  of  Sonship  which  was  a  constant  and  unchanging 
experience — "a  unique  consciousness  of  a  unique  rela- 
tion." At  both  stages  of  His  ministry  He  associated  the 
Kingdom  with  His  Person  and  work.  From  the  outset, 
unless  we  are  to  displace  Mark  ii.  18-20,  He  had  the  fore- 
boding of  a  tragic  end  to  His  career.  The  story  of  the 
Temptation,  if  we  disallow  the  view  that  the  accounts 
in  Matthew  and  Luke  are  coloured  by  subsequent  events, 
indicates  that  the  problem  of  reconciling  the  accepted 
ideas  of  Messiah  with  the  intimations  of  His  own  con- 
sciousness, was  with  Him  then.^     The  precise  moment 

*  Professor  Burney,  in  a  sermon  entitled  The  Old  Testament  Con- 
ception of  Atonement  Fulfilled  by  Christ  (1920),  has  drawn  attention 
to   the    Messianic   significance   of   the   incident    in   Luke   iv.    16-22. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  97 

when  He  became  fully  aware  of  what  His  acceptance  of 
the  Messianic  role  entailed,  may  be  uncertain :  the  fact 
that  He  accepted  the  role  is  clear.  For  the  proof  "is  not 
confined  to  a  few  isolated  passages  which  might  easily 
be  eliminated,  but  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  narrative,  and 
is  meant  to  constitute  its  whole  significance."^  The 
reasons  for  His  hesitancy  in  openly  avowing  his  claim  I 
do  not  propose  to  enter  on.  The  reticence  which  He 
observed  may  not  be  easy  to  explain,  but  we  are  not  there- 
fore compelled  to  accept  explanations  which  make  the 
consciousness  of  His  Messiahship  a  late  development. 
This  is  certain :  "He  felt  that  He  stood  in  a  unique  rela- 
tion to  mankind,  because  He  was  chosen  of  God  to  be 
the  vehicle  to  them  of  the  revelation  of  His  Mind  and 
Will,  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  world, 
and,  at  whatever  cost  to  Himself,  to  be  the  means  by 
which  the  Divine  Order  of  human  society,  an  order  of 
righteousness,  mutual  help,  and  brotherhood,  should  be 
established."^  It  is  not  hard  to  see  how  His  Messianic 
claim  had  its  roots  in  His  Message  of  the  Kingdom. 
The  change  which  our  Lord  wrought  in  the  conception 

"The  passage  in  Isa.  Ixi.  which  begins  with  the  words  'Tlie  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  anointed  me  to  preach  good 
tidings  to  the  poor'  .  .  .  occurs  in  a  group  of  chapters  which  are 
not  the  work  of  Deutero-Isaiah  but  of  a  later  post-exilic  prophet, 
who  is,  however,  undoubtedly  taking  up  and  developing  the  earlier 
prophet's  conception  of  the  ideal  servant.  .  .  I  do  not  know  how 
the  Lucan  narrative  is  understood  by  those  who  hold  that  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  witness  to  the  fact  that  our  Lord  concealed  His 
Messianic  claims  in  the  earlier  stages  of  His  ministry,  and  in  fact 
until  just  before  His  Passion;  but  it  certainly  appears  from  it  that 
at  a  very  early  stage  He  was  ready,  before  a  suitable  audience,  to 
proclaim  Himself  Messiah  in  the  sense  in  which  He  understood  and 
assumed  Messiahship." 

'E.  F.  Scott,  op.  cit.  p.  169. 

*Bethune  Baker,  Faith  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  p.  57. 


98  THE  RETURN  OF 

of  the  Messiah  is  the  most  startling  and  revolutionary 
thing  in  His  teaching.  It  is  the  unfolding  of  the  content 
of  His  Messianic  consciousness  which  gives  to  His  teach- 
ing of  the  Kingdom  its  essentially  "new"  character.  He 
transfused  the  Messianic  conception  with  His  own  spirit. 
He  brought  it  into  line  with  His  own  idea  of  kingliness. 
At  length,  after  deep  travail  and  perplexity  of  soul,  He 
revealed  His  secret  to  His  disciples  and  spoke  of  the 
Baptism  with  which  He  must  be  baptized  before  He  could 
enter  upon  His  destined  office.  He  takes  to  Himself  the 
words  of  the  Suffering  Servant  and  interprets  them  as 
Messianic.  "The  Messiah  a  Servant.  Not  so  had  king- 
ship been  conceived.  The  Suffering  Servant  of  the 
Prophet  had  not  yet  been  commonly  identified — if  even, 
as  yet,  identified  at  all — with  the  Messiah."^  He  declares 
that  by  His  death  He  will  effect  the  coming  of  the  King- 
dom and  render  possible  the  life  He  has  revealed  to  them. 
That  life  was  more  than  a  mere  emancipation  from  ma- 
terial disabilities:  it  was  redemption  into  the  life  of  God. 
In  a  single  phrase  He  epitomized  the  whole  idea  of  the 
great  chapter  of  Isaiah :  of  God's  purpose  fulfilled  by 
one  who  dies  for  the  common  deliverance,^  i.e.  "give  His 
life  a  ransom  for  many."  At  the  Last  Supper  He  antici- 
pates the  New  Covenant  to  be  established  through  His 
death.  His  death.  Resurrection,  and  Ascension  were  the 
establishment  of  a  New  Covenant,  the  setting  up  of  the 
Kingdom,  and  His  Own  enthronement  as  Messiah.  The 
Kingdom  comes  out  of  the  crucible  of  the  Passion  and  the 
Resurrection.  It  has  no  meaning,  and  could  have  had 
no  existence  apart  from  them. 

It  is  at  this  point  we  can  most  conveniently  pass  to  the 
consideration  of  the  Church.     The  Church  is  a  corollary 

*  C.  G.  Montefiore,  Liberal  Judaism  and  Hellenism,  p.  104. 
*Markx.  43. 


''THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  99 

of  belief  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus.  The  Messianic 
Kingdom  implies  the  continuance  of  a  covenanted  Society. 
Our  Lord's  hope  had  been  that  the  Jewish  Church 
would  rise  to  its  mission.  It  was  only  after  its  apostasy 
was  demonstrated  that  He  began  the  training  of  the 
Twelve  for  their  office  in  His  Ecclesia  which  is  less  a  new 
creation  than  the  completing  and  fulfilling  of  the  Ancient 
Church  of  God.  You  cannot  cut  off  the  entail  which  binds 
the  Christian  to  the  Jewish  Church.  "The  Church,"  as 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice  says,  'was  to  the  early  Chris- 
tians, certainly  to  the  writer  of  the  Acts,  the  child  which 
the  Jewish  polity  had  for  so  many  ages  been  carrying  in 
its  womb."  The  Church  is  the  new  Israel,  the  herald  and 
instrument  of  the  Kingdom.  "We  may  speak  of  the 
Ecclesia  as  the  visible  representative  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  or  as  the  primary  instrument  of  its  sway,  or  under 
any  other  analogous  forms  of  language.  But  we  are  not 
justified  in  identifying  the  one  with  the  other,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  apply  directly  to  the  Ecclesia  whatever  is  said  in 
the  Gospels  about  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  or  of  God.'"^ 
The  Church  was  to  the  first  believers  the  "Way"  in  which 
the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  were  in  operation :  it  was  the 
"community  of  the  Messiah  and  therefore  the  New 
Israel."  What  was  involved  in  those  premises  was  not 
clear  to  them,  but  it  was  from  these  premises  that  the 
Catholic  Church  was  evolved.  Apart  from  the  acceptance 
of  these  premises,  it  will  always  be  open  to  men  to  argue 
that  Our  Lord  did  not  found  a  Church,  and  that  ecclesi- 
astical Christianity  is  foreign  to  His  intention.  You 
cannot,  if  you  expunge  the  belief  in  our  Lord's  claim 
to  be  the  Messiah,  build  up  a  doctrine  of  the  Church 
from  the  Gospels.  The  facts  of  the  training  of  the 
Twelve  and  the  Incident  at  Csesarea  Philippi  are  insuf- 
^  Hort,  The  Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  19. 


100  THE  RETURN  OF 

ficient  in  themselves.  The  interpretation  of  certain  par- 
ables as  parables  of  the  Church  rather  than  as  what  they 
profess  to  be,  parables  of  the  Kingdom,  is  arbitrary  and 
unjustifiable.  There  is  no  ground  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Acts  for  believing  that  the  teaching  after  the  Resur- 
rection was  concerned  with  the  details  of  Church  polity. 
"We  do  not  need  any  special  passages  to  prove  that  Jesus 
intended  to  found  a  religious  society.  It  was  implicit  in 
his  claim  to  be  Messiah."^ 

The  Church,  almost  from  the  start,  found  itself  plunged 
into  conflict  and  battling  for  its  very  existence.  Absorbed 
by  that  conflict,  aliens  from  their  own  mother's  sons, 
treated  with  suspicion  wherever  they  went,  it  is  easy  to 
see  how  the  Church,  in  the  minds  of  its  members,  tended 
to  take  the  place  of  the  Kingdom  as  the  sphere  in  which 
the  blessings  of  the  New  Age  were  to  be  enjoyed.  Again, 
as  Ritschl  observes,^  "Cares  about  the  formation  of  con- 
gregations came  so  much  to  the  front,  that  the  entire 
moral  interest  was  concentrated  on  their  internal  consoli- 
dation." The  opening  up  of  the  Gentile  world  brought 
with  it  the  problem  of  translating  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom 
into  the  language  of  peoples  to  whom  the  belief  in  the 
effective  sovereignty  of  God  was  unfamiliar.  That  the 
Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  lost  something  in  its  transmission 
to  Gentile  soil  was  inevitable  and  is  evident  from  the 
study  of  the  Pauline  Epistles.  That  it  was  preached  is 
proven. 

When  we  reach  the  writings  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers, 
the  Kingdom  has  receded  into  the  background.  With  the 
exception  of  a  saying  of  our  Lord  concerning  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  in  the  so-called  Second  Epistle  of  Cle- 

^  Hamilton,  People  of  God,  vol.  ii.  p.  19. 

*  Ritschl,  Justification  and   Reconciliation,   edited  by   Mackintosh, 
p.  284. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  101 

ment/  references  are  few  and  far  between.  But  the 
absence  of  references  to  the  Kingdom  in  post-apostolic 
literature,  does  not  mean  that  Christians  were  not  await- 
ing and  working  for  the  Coming  Age.  "In  the  cities  of 
the  Empire,  in  the  churches  whose  membership  was 
drawn  from  the  slave  class  and  the  poorer  freemen,  the 
belief  was  steadfast.  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand." 
A  new  world,  a  wholly  new  state  of  things  is  on  the  point 
of  arriving;  watch  and  be  ready,  and  above  all,  do  not 
cumber  yourselves  with  your  old  possessions,  your  old 
traditions,  your  old  affections."-  Chilianism  was  a  mighty 
influence  amongst  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Church.  It 
claimed  not  a  few  (for  instance,  Irenseus)  of  the  ablest 
men  among  its  adherents.  For  four  centuries  at  least 
the  hope  of  the  Kingdom,  the  common  substance  of  which 
is  the  conviction  that  an  order  of  life  is  possible  on  the 
earth  in  which  righteousness,  love,  and  peace  are  sover- 
eign, maintained  itself.'  Then  with  the  condemnation  of 
Millenialism,  the  faith  in  the  Kingdom  began  to  decay, 
and  with  St.  Augustine  is  completed  the  formal  identifica- 
tion of  the  Church  with  the  Kingdom.  The  Vision 
Splendid  melted  away  until  the  Kingdom  became  "not 
for  this  world."  It  had  always  been,  and  must  always 
be,  "not  of  this  world."* 

*  "The  Lord  Himself,  being  asked  when  His  kingdom  would  come, 
said,  'When  the  two  shall  be  one,  and  the  outside  with  the  inside, 
and  the  male  with  the  female,  neither  male  nor  female.' " 

'  Burkitt,  Jewish  and  Christian  Apocalypses,  p.  13.  "I  am  not 
asking  you  to  forget  the  personal  influence  of  Jesus  upon  those  who 
accepted  Him  as  their  Master,  for  indeed  without  it  you  lose  the 
cord  that  both  binds  the  Christians  together  and  supplies  the  current 
of  their  enthusiasm.  But  that  enthusiasm  of  the  early  Christians 
was  directed  to  the  Good  Time  Coming." 

'  Bethune  Baker,  op.  cit.  p.51-53 

*  "This  putting  off  to  another  life  in  another  world  of  the  hope 


102  THE  RETURN  OF 

I  started  with  the  plea  that  the  paramount  duty  of  the 
Church  is  to  agree  on  the  essentials  of  its  message.  For 
generations  past  the  Church  has  preached  what  is  called 
"the  Gospel."  The  call  to-day  is  to  return  to  what  the 
New  Testament  calls  "the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom" — 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  our  preach- 
ing, regulative  of  our  theology,  and  the  touchstone  by 
which  all  the  activities  of  the  Church  are  tested.  This 
will  involve  a  Reformation  in  comparison  with  which 
the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  will  seem  a 
small  thing. 

The  task  of  building  up  our  theology  around  the  idea 
of  the  Kingdom  is  one  requiring  courage  and  presenting 
serious  difficulties.  It  has  been  rendered  more  difficult 
than  it  necessarily  is  owing  to  the  prejudice  aroused  by 
Ritschl  and  his  school.^  We  shall  be  told  that  such  a 
system  will  lead  to  the  loss  of  essential  values:  that  we 
are  minimizers  and  dangerous  persons.  Notwithstanding 
all  the  difficulties  which  are  alleged,  the  task  must  be 
undertaken.^  It  is  necessary  for  the  defence  of  the 
Catholic  Faith.  For  it  will  enable  us  to  meet  the  argu- 
ments, so  speciously  advanced,  which  make  of  the  Faith 
a  syncretism  of  rather  dubious  Oriental  beliefs.  The 
Catholic  Faith  stands  or  falls  by  the  truth  of  the  revela- 
tion of  God  contained  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 
If  St.  Augustine  found  the  key  to  that  revelation  in  the 
development  of  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom,  surely  we  have 
grounds  for  believing  that  such  a  task  has  reason  behind 
it? 

of  the  Kingdom  and  the  realization  of  its  conditions  is  perhaps  the 
greatest  apostasy  that  the  history  of  religions  can  disclose."  Op. 
cit.  p.  52;  Hort,  Christian  Ecclesia,  p.  19. 

*  The  topic  is  discussed  by  Dr.  Orr,  Christian  View  of  God  and 
the  World,  Appendix,  "The  Idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God." 

'  Cf.  Candlish,  The  Kingdom  of  God,  pp.  2-3. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  103 

Further,  each  age  demands  of  the  Church  a  new  apolo- 
getic framed  to  meet  its  conditions.  The  two  foes  the 
Church  must  defeat  are  Manicheism  within  its  own 
borders,  and  Materialism  in  the  world  outside. 

We  cannot  blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  there  exists 
within  the  Church  a  large  body  of  opinion  which  is  sub- 
Christian,  and  whose  real  creed  is  a  crude  "salvationism." 
It  offers  no  hope  of  a  better  world.  It  ignores  the  social 
nature  of  the  Gospel.  It  regards  the  Kingdom  as  a  purely 
spiritual  idea.  But,  "to  suppose  that  Christ  meant  by  His 
Kingdom  a  purely  ideal  state,  which  would  have  no 
earthly  expression  as  a  society,  is  to  say  that  the  Apostles 
and  subsequent  generations  of  His  followers  misunder- 
stood him."^  Such  a  supposition  cuts  human  experience 
in  two.  It  disparages  the  present  life  and  makes  it  a 
mere  antecedent  to  the  future,  robbing  it  of  intrinsic 
dignity  and  worth.  It  rests  on  a  conception  of  "the 
individual"  which  is  philosophically  false:  "The  individ- 
ual soul"  of  the  pietist  is  as  much  an  abstraction  as  the 
"economic  man"  of  the  Classical  economists.  To  quote 
a  non-Christian  writer,  Mr.  G.  D.  H.  Cole:  "The  odd 
fact  that  man  is  at  once  soul  and  body  forces  itself  into 
every  social  relationship,  and  binds  together  spirit  and 
matter  in  a  fashion  which  the  philosophers  have  found 
it  infinitely  troublesome  to  explain.  It  is  the  most  vicious 
of  abstractions  to  take  an  aspect  of  human  life  and  say 
of  it:  'This  at  least  is  purely  material'  That  is,  in 
a  very  real  sense,  'the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost.'^  The 
theology  of  the  Kingdom  would  purge  the  Church  of  that 
plausible  insincerity  which  masquerades  as  "spiritual 
religion."  As  Ruskin  told  the  clergy,  "It  would  be  well 
if  many  of  us,  in  reading  that  text,  'The  Kingdom  of  God 

'  Freemantle,  The  World  the  Subject  of  Redemption,  p.  111. 
*  Cole,   Labour  in  the   Commonwealth,  pp.   31-32. 


104  THE  RETURN  OF 

IS  NOT  meat  and  drink/  had  even  got  as  far  as  to  under- 
stand that  it  is  at  least  as  much,  and  that  until  we  have 
fed  the  hungry,  there  was  no  power  in  us  to  inspire  the 
unhappy."^ 

The  Church  must  have  the  courage  of  its  Baptismal 
Creed  with  its  first  dogmatic  assertion  concerning  Jesus 
that  He  is  the  Christ,  the  Messiah  whose  special  function 
is  to  inaugurate  on  earth  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  must 
recognize  that  it  is  a  means  and  not  an  end  in  itself."  Its 
end  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  So  long  as  men  serve  the 
Church  first  and  what  it  should  promote  second,  they  are 
not  loyal  to  the  Kingdom  of  God.  There  is  an  excusable 
tendency  to  exaggerate  the  great  achievements  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  to  see  in  mediaeval  civilization  a 
Christendom  as  near  perfection  as  is  possible  in  this  im- 
perfect world.  But  why  did  mediaeval  civilization 
collapse?  There  are  reasons  and  reasons.  I  hold  the 
true  one  to  be  because  at  the  root  of  that  civilization  there 
was  a  lie.  Mediaeval  civilization  identified  the  Church 
with  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  Church,  instead  of 
promoting  the  Kingdom,  replaced  it.  The  usurpation  of 
the  Church  and  its  disparagement  of  the  other  modes 
through  which  the  Kingdom  is  built,  brought  with  it  the 
inevitable  consequence.  Catholicism  degenerated  into 
the  slavish  worship  of  its  own  organization,   and  that 

^  Ruskin,  Letters  to  the  Clergy,  p.  22. 

'"'Modern  pietists  are  accustomed  to  describe  their  favourite 
undertakings,  especially  foreign  missions,  directly  as  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  but  in  doing  so,  while  they  touch  the  ethical  meaning  of  the 
idea,  they  narrow  its  reference  improperly.  This  circle,  too,  has 
brought  the  word  into  use  to  describe,  e.g.  the  public  affairs  of  the 
Church.  .  .  .  This  use  of  the  name  involves  the  interchange  of 
Church  and  the  Kingdom  which  we  find  dominating  Roman  Cathol- 
icism," and  the  writer  might  have  added,  "and  Anglo-Catholicism." 
Ritschl,  op.  cit.  p.  11. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  105 

organization  became  a  tyranny  from  which  men  at  length 
revolted.  The  danger  is  not  altogether  a  thing  of  the 
past.  It  has  assumed  a  different  form.  The  fact  that  the 
Church  is  an  institution  with  large  vested  interests  sub- 
jects it  to  the  temptation  of  all  large  vested  interests — 
the  temptation  to  make  the  protection  of  its  own  material 
well-being  the  dominating  influence  in  its  policy.  Again, 
the  Church  has  suffered  its  conception  of  sanctity  to 
become  stereotyped.  The  outlook  of  the  devout  tends  to 
grow  narrowed  the  more  they  advance  in  what  is  called 
the  "spiritual"  life.  Detachment  is  not  infrequently 
misunderstood,  and  used  as  an  excuse  for  avoiding  the 
obligations  of  the  common  life.  The  intellectual  mean- 
ness and  narrow-mindedness  of  many  of  our  devout 
people,  both  priests  and  laymen,  are  notorious.  "So  few 
make  holiness  in  any  sense  their  chief  end  that  it  may 
seem  rash  to  speak  against  this,  yet  it  is  painfully  true 
that  even  Christian  faith  becomes  insipid  and  ineffective 
unless  it  confronts  the  world  and  is  proved  in  the  actuali- 
ties and  conflicts  of  life."  ^  With  a  new  orientation  of 
our  theology  would  come  the  recognition  that  the  King- 
dom which  is  being  built  is  built  up  through  the  exercise 
of  diverse  gifts  of  the  One  Spirit,  and  we  shall  no  longer 
standardize  spirituality. 

One  of  the  encouraging  signs  of  the  times  is  the  revival 
of  the  idea  of  "vocation"  in  relation  to  the  ordinary 
pursuits  of  life.  If  it  is  applied  faithfully,  it  will,  I  am 
convinced,  do  more  to  awaken  the  social  conscience  of 
churchmen  than  all  the  appeals  which  have  hitherto  been 
made.  It  is  better  so.  Social  endeavour  should  not  rest 
on  the  fear  for  public  stability,  but  on  a  reverence  for  im- 
mortal souls.-    The  idea  of  "vocation"  faithfully  applied 

*  Dr.  Denney. 

*  Bussell,  Christian  Theology  and  Social  Progress,  p.  94. 


106  THE  RETURN  OF 

will  reveal  to  the  sincere  but  obscurantist  Christian  the 
appalling  extent  to  which  the  present  industrial  system 
renders  the  idea  inconceivable  to  multitudes  of  his  fellow- 
men.  How  are  men  to  develop  the  sense  of  vocation  in 
the  useless  toil  on  which  they  are  forced,  through 
economic  compulsion,   to   waste  their  energies?     Boys 

Our  life  is  turned 
Out  of  her  course,  wherever  Man  is  made 
An  offering  or  a  sacrifice,  a  tool 
Or  implement,  a  passive  thing  employed 
As  a  brute  mean,  without  acknowledgment 
Or  common  right  or  interest  in  the  end ; 
Used  or  abused  as  selfishness  may  prompt.* 

forced  into  blind  alley  occupations;  men  and  women 
engaged  in  the  production  of  goods  which  it  is  an  insult  to 
a  free  man  to  have  to  produce,  lives  without  interest  and 
with  no  self-determination — spent  in  an  environment 
which  degrades  the  soul  and  injures  the  body — how,  and 
in  what  sense  are  these  to  be  taught  the  glory  of  the  com- 
mon life  and  the  surpassing  dignity  of  service? 

Nor  is  the  evil  confined  to  the  working  hours  :  it  affects 
the  leisure  time.  The  higher  instincts  are  numbered  and 
the  whole  life  is  vulgarized.  "The  greatest  crime  of  our 
industrial  and  commercial  civilization  is  that  it  leaves  us 
a  taste  only  for  that  which  can  be  bought  with  money,  and 
makes  us  overlook  the  purest  and  sweetest  joys  which  are 
all  the  while  within  our  reach. "^ 

The  Church,  once  delivered  from  ecclesiastical-minded- 
ness  and  aflame  with  the  faith  of  the  Kingdom,  will  be 
compelled  to  adopt  towards  our  industrial  system  the 
same  attitude  which  our  missionaries  take  towards  the 

*  Wordsworth,  The  Excursion,  Book  IX. 
*Sabatier  (Paul),  St.  Francis,  p.  107. 


"THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD"  107 

social  order  of  heathendom.  It  will  then  challenge  the 
Industrial  World  as  it  challenged  the  forces  of  Roman 
Imperialism  in  the  days  of  persecution. 

We  dare  not  deceive  ourselves.  That  brighter  and 
more  perfect  future,  the  consummation  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  is  only  to  be  reached  through  much  tribulation. 
God  is  the  Maker  of  it.  He  has  made  it  already  in  His 
Son.  We  are  His  fellow  workers  in  bringing  it  to  pass. 
The  Church  is  the  social  leaven  of  the  twice-born, 
"There  are  in  reality  only  two  doctrines  of  progress :  the 
first,  nourished  in  the  schools  of  self-indulgence,  seeks  to 
rehabilitate  the  passions ;  and  promising  the  nations  an 
earthly  paradise  at  the  end  of  a  flowery  path,  gives  them 
only  a  premature  hell  at  the  end  of  a  way  of  blood ;  the 
second,  born  and  inspired  by  Christianity,  points  to 
progress  in  the  victory  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh, 
promises  nothing  but  as  the  prize  of  warfare,  and  pro- 
nounces the  creed  which  carries  the  warfare  into  the 
individual  soul  to  be  the  only  way  of  peace  to  the 
nations."^ 

^  Ozanam. 


THE   MEDIEVAL   THEORY   OF 
SOCIAL   ORDER 

BY 
Rev.  A,  J.  CARLYLE,  D.Litt. 

Author  of  Mediaeval  Political  Theory  in  the  West,  Vol.  I.-IV.,  etc. 


110  THE  MEDIEVAL  THEORY 

SYNOPSIS 

The  Middle  Ages — despite  their  shortcomings — believed  firmly 
that  the  basic  principle  of  social  life  was  justice.  This  was  gen- 
erally conceived  of  as  being  embodied  in  law,  which  was  null  and 
void  if  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature.  Men  knew  nothing  of  an 
arbitrary  and  capricious  authority,  which  constitutes  a  doctrine  that 
is  the  greatest  danger  of  our  time. 

Mediaeval  writers  constantly  testify  to  the  belief  that  justice  was 
the  rationale  of  authority.  Translated  into  modern  terms,  this 
means  that  the  primary  function  of  the  State  is  a  moral  function: 
the  State  should  have  for  its  end  the  establishment  of  a  moral 
order  to  which  economic  functions  are  subordinate.  Bracton  wrote 
that  "there  is  no  king  when  will  rules,  not  law" — i.e.  there  is  no 
authority  in  society,  if  it  is  an  arbitrary  one.  If  the  ruler  failed 
to  carry  out  the  law,  men  were  absolved  from  their  feudal  obliga- 
tions to  him.    This  is  the  origin  of  the  theory  of  the  social  contract. 

Law  did  not  normally  present  itself  to  men  of  the  Middle  Ages 
as  something  that  was  made.  It  was  primarily  custom,  and  so  far 
as  it  was  made  was  so  by  the  acceptance  of  the  whole  community.  It 
was  further  thought  of  as  being  the  embodiment  of  justice,  and 
as  of  no  authority  unless  conformable  to  the  "natural  law."  Law 
then  was  without  validity  unless  it  was  the  expression  of  something 
more  than  custom  or  will. 

Change  became  inevitable,  since  it  was  necessary  to  find  a  power 
behind  the  law  which  could  alter  the  law;  reinterpretation  and 
adaptation  became  insufficient.  The  process  concealed  itself  behind 
the  appeal  to  precedent.  But  the  facts  triumphed,  and  a  distinction 
arose  between  legislative  and  judicial  authority — law  coming  to  be 
regarded  as  the  expression  of  the  will  of  a  supreme  power  which 
lay  behind  it.  The  doctrine  of  an  absolute  sovereign  power  was 
evolved  and  was  set  forth  in  its  extreme  form  by  Hobbes.  Its  effect 
has  been  mischievous  in  spreading  the  idea  that  the  safety  or 
convenience  of  the  State  is  something  which  is  beyond  right  and 
wrong. 

A  similar  economic  theory  arose  naturally  from  the  conditions  of 
economic  life  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries.  Its  natural 
consequence  has  been  that  economic-relations  have  taken  on  the 
aspect  of  a  class  war.  This  further  testifies  to  the  urgent  necessity 
that  we  should  return  from  the  superstition  of  absolute  authority. 
We  have  much  to  learn  from  a  time  when  men  believed  justice, 
and  not  force,  should  be  supreme.  Our  task  is  to  work  out  this 
principle  into  a  system  consistent  with  modern  conditions  and  cap- 
able of  progressive  development. 


OF  SOCIAL  ORDER  111 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MEDIEVAL  THEORY  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER 

There  may  be  considerable  dispute  as  to  the  precise  char- 
acter of  mediaeval  civilization.  To  the  good  people  of  the 
Renaissance  it  seemed  to  be  a  mere  barbarism,  and  perhaps 
the  sentimental  conceptions  about  it,  common  during  the 
Romantic  period,  were  almost  as  far  from  the  truth.  For 
the  Middle  Ages,  as  we  are  beginning  to  see.  present  us 
with  a  spectacle  of  bewildering  complexity;  men  were 
brutal,  ferocious,  immoral,  and  often  ignorant;  but  at 
the  same  time  they  were  fired  by  a  passion  for  beauty, 
which  transformed  almost  everything  that  they  touched ; 
they  were  indefatigable  in  their  pursuit  of  truth,  and  they 
were  often  possessed  by  a  sense  of  the  spiritual.  And, 
whatever  were  their  shortcomings,  they  did  at  least 
believe  firmly  that  the  first  and  last  principle  of  social  life 
was  justice. 

It  is  upon  this  that  I  am  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  to 
say  a  little.  I  do  not  suppose  that  my  own  judgment  upon 
the  mediaeval  world  or  Church  would  correspond  precisely 
with  that  of  other  writers  in  this  volume,  but  I  should 
agree  with  them  in  thinking  that  we  have  not  yet  re- 
covered from  the  foolishness  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  that  we  have  a  good  deal  to  learn  from  a  time  when 
men  did  not  confuse  utility  with  principle,  or  imagine  that 
the  world  advances  by  the  reckless  pursuit  of  self-interest. 
And  perhaps  to-day,  when  it  seems  clear  that  that  illusory 


112  THE  MEDIiEVAL  THEORY 

theory  of  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  State,  which 
was  developed  by  the  eccentric  genius  of  Hobbes,  and 
more  or  less  accepted  by  some  jurists  in  England  and 
America,  is  breaking  down,  it  may  be  useful  to  remind 
ourselves  of  a  time  when  this  conception  of  sovereignty 
was  not  merely  unknown,  but  would  have  seemed  to 
serious  men  a  form  of  lunacy. 

For  the  first,  and  in  some  ways  the  most  essential  aspect 
of  the  normal  political  thought  of  the  Middle  Age  was 
that  it  knew  nothing  of  absolute  authority  except  the 
authority  of  justice,  which  was  generally  conceived  of  as 
being  embodied  in  the  law.  In  the  State,  as  we  should 
now  call  it,  the  king  was  not  supreme,  but  the  law,  and  in 
the  Church  it  was  not  the  Pope,  but  again  the  law ;  and  a 
law,  whether  of  Church  or  State,  was  null  and  void  if  it 
was  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature,  which  Gratian 
identified  with  the  law  of  God. 

It  may  seem  paradoxical  to  those  who  are  not  familiar 
with  the  literature  and  the  political  life  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  but  the  real  truth  about  them  is  that  men  knew 
nothing  of  an  arbitrary  and  capricious  authority,  while  in 
the  deplorable  confusions  of  the  period  of  the  Renaissance 
many  Romanists  and  High  Anglicans,  and  some  Protest- 
ants, persuaded  themselves  to  accept  an  arbitrary  mon- 
archy, and  in  our  own  day  there  is  some  danger  lest  we 
should  imagine  that  we  believe  in  an  arbitrary  absolutism 
of  democracy.  The  most  serious  danger  of  modern 
society  is  not,  as  some  very  short-sighted  critics  imagine, 
the  tendency  to  anarchy,  but  the  desire  to  find  some 
absolute  and  final  authority.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  abso- 
lute authority  which  is  the  greatest  danger  of  our  time, 
and  it  is  not  less  dangerous  when  it  masquerades  under 
the  form  of  democracy. 

The    first    principle    of    mediaeval    society    was    the 


OF  SOCIAL  ORDER  113 

supremacy  of  justice;  and  justice  was  conceived  of  as  em- 
bodied in  law.  The  king,  Bracton  says,  has  two  superiors, 
God  and  the  law.  This  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  con- 
tinual insistence  upon  justice  as  the  rationale  of  kingship, 
which  we  find  throughout  the  political  literature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  from  the  ninth  century  onwards.  The 
Abbot  Smaragd,  for  instance,  says :  "Keep  justice,  O 
King,  and  judgment,  this  is  the  royal  way  trodden  by  the 
kings  of  old  time.  .  .If  thou  desirest  that  God  should 
establish  thy  throne  thou  shalt  not  cease  to  do  justice  to 
the  poor,"  And  the  treatise,  De  duodecim  abusivis 
saeculi,  probably  of  Irish  origin,  which  is  frequently 
quoted  in  the  ninth  century,  warns  the  king  that  he  must 
not  be  unjust,  but  must  restrain  the  unjust;  it  is  tlie  proper 
purpose  of  his  office  to  rule,  but  how  can  he  rule  and 
correct  others  unless  he  first  corrects  himself.  Justice  in 
the  king  means  to  oppress  no  man  unjustly,  to  judge  right- 
eously between  men;  to  defend  the  weak,  to  protect  the 
Church,  to  put  just  rulers  over  the  kingdom;  to  live  in 
God  and  the  Catholic  faith,  and  to  keep  his  children  from 
evil. 

What  such  writers  say  was  only  repeated  again  and 
more  emphatically  by  Bracton  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  king,  he  said,  is  elected  for  this  very  purpose  that  he 
should  do  justice  to  all  men,  and  that  through  him  God 
may  administer  his  judgments.  The  king  is  God's  vicar 
upon  earth,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  divide  right  from  wrong, 
the  equitable  from  the  inequitable,  that  all  his  subjects 
may  live  honestly  and  that  no  man  should  injure  another. 
The  king,  therefore,  should  obey  the  authority  of  law 
(or  right),  as  being  tlie  vicar  and  servant  of  God,  for  that 
alone  is  the  authority  of  God :  the  authority  of  wrong 
belongs  to  the  devil  and  not  to  God,  and  the  king  is  the 
servant  of  him  whose  work  he  does.    Therefore  when  the 


114  THE  MEDIEVAL  THEORY 

king  does  justice  he  is  the  vicar  of  the  eternal  King,  but  he 
is  the  servant  of  the  devil  when  he  does  wrong. 

We  can  put  this  into  modern,  more  abstract  terms,  if 
we  say  that  the  primary  function  of  the  State  is  a  moral 
function ;  that  its  primary  end  is  the  establishment  of  some 
moral  order.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  ignore  what 
may  be  called  the  economic  functions  of  organized 
society,  but  it  does  mean  that  we  look  upon  them  as  sub- 
ordinate to  its  moral  function  and  end.  And  I  venture 
to  say  that  it  is  really  high  time  that  men  should  face  this 
more  resolutely.  It  has  been  said  by  men  of  some 
economic  authority  that  Western  civilization  is  at  the 
present  time  faced  with  a  dilemma,  it  can  be  either  rich 
or  free,  but  it  cannot  be  both.  There  are  perhaps  some 
people  who  would  put  the  dilemma  under  other  terms  and 
say  that  we  can  be  either  rich  or  just,  but  not  both.  As  an 
historical  critic  I  profess  I  am  profoundly  sceptical  of 
such  dilemmas.  I  do  not  think  that  the  experience  of  the 
world  really  affords  any  justification  for  the  opinion  that 
any  society  can  in  the  long  run  be  rich  which  is  not  at- 
tempting to  be  free  and  just.  But,  supposing  the  dilemma 
to  have  some  truth,  we  shall  do  well  to  ask  ourselves 
which  it  is  that  we  choose.  There  is  at  least  no  doubt 
about  the  principle  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

To  return  to  our  immediate  subject.  To  the  mediaeval 
thinkers,  the  idea  of  justice  was  not  a  mere  abstraction, 
for  justice  was  embodied  in  the  law.  We  may  indeed 
think  that  their  conception  of  the  living  movement  of  the 
world  was  limited  and  inadequate,  but  at  least  they  did 
believe  in  some  concrete  system  of  order  and  right  in  life. 

I  have  already  mentioned  Bracton's  great  principle  that 
the  king  had  two  superiors,  God  and  the  law,  and  it  is 
worth  while  to  look  at  this  a  little  more  closely.  For  to 
him  the  conception  of  that  justice  which  the  king  must 


OF  SOCIAL  ORDER  115 

obey  was  not  something  elusive  and  intangible.  In  the 
first  place  and  before  all  justice  meant  that  which  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  law,  and  without  this  Bracton  could  not 
conceive  of  authority  at  all.  In  another  famous  and  ad- 
mirable phrase  he  says,  there  is  no  king  when  will  (that  is 
capricious  and  arbitrary  will)  rules,  not  law ;  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  authority  in  society,  if  it  is  an  arbitrary  one. 
The  king  is  under  law  precisely  because  he  is  God's  vicar, 
for  Jesus  Christ  whom  he  represents  on  earth  willed  to 
be  under  the  law  that  He  might  redeem  those  who  were 
under  the  law.  The  Blessed  Virgin  thus  also  submitted 
to  the  ordinances  of  the  law.  The  king  should  follow 
these  examples ;  there  is  no  man  greater  than  the  king  in 
administering  justice,  but  he  should  be  as  the  least  in 
receiving  the  judgment  of  the  law. 

It  is  this  clear  hold  upon  the  first  principle  of  a  reason- 
able order  which  explains  how  firmly  these  mediaeval 
thinkers  could  deal  with  the  question  of  what  was  to  be 
done  if  the  ruler  refused  to  carry  out  the  law.  The 
Assizes  of  Jerusalem  do  not  hesitate  either  to  lay  down 
the  principle,  or  to  suggest  how  the  principle  should  be 
enforced.  The  king,  they  say,  has  sworn  to  maintain  the 
good  usages  of  the  kingdom,  to  protect  the  poor  as  well 
as  the  rich  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  right;  if  he  breaks 
his  oath  he  denies  God,  and  his  vassals  and  the  people 
should  not  permit  this,  for  the  lord  is  lord  only  of  law 
(or  right)  and  not  of  wrong.  And,  to  their  minds,  the 
method  of  compulsion  was  simple ;  they  should  withdraw 
their  allegiance,  and  should  refuse  to  carry  out  any  of 
their  feudal  obligations  until  he  submits. 

This  is  again  the  meaning  of  that  conception  of  political 
society  as  an  association  of  mutual  obligation  which  is  the 
proper  characteristic  of  the  principles  of  medicxval  life; 
this  is  the  meaning  of  the  continual  insistence  upon  the 


116  THE  MEDIAEVAL  THEORY 

mutual  oaths  of  king  and  people  which  constituted  the  es- 
sential aspect  of  the  coronation  ceremony,  and  out  of 
which  there  grew  the  historical  theory  of  the  social  con- 
tract; not  of  course  the  confused  and  unhistorical  con- 
ception of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  For 
this  is  the  plain  truth,  the  mediaeval  theory  of  organized 
society  was  the  tlieory  of  a  contractual  relation,  a  relation 
of  mutual  obligation  and  service.  This  is  obviously  true 
of  all  feudal  relations,  but  it  was  equally  true  of  the  larger 
political  relation,  which  was  for  a  time  practically  over- 
laid by  feudalism,  but  which  was  older  than  feudalism  and 
survived  it. 

It  is  thus  again  that  John  of  Salisbury  finds  it  easy  to 
distinguish  between  the  king  and  the  tyrant,  for  the  king 
is  one  who  governs  according  to  the  law,  who  maintains 
and  enforces  and  obeys  it,  while  the  tyrant  is  one  who 
rules  by  violence,  who  overrides  the  law,  and  thus  reduces 
the  people  to  slaves.  The  king  bears  the  image  of  God, 
the  tyrant  that  of  the  devil. 

And  now,  lest  we  should  misunderstand  this  conception 
of  law,  we  must  remind  ourselves  that  to  these  people  law 
was  not  an  arbitrary  or  irrational  thing,  representing  the 
caprice  of  the  ruler,  or  even  of  the  people.  We  may  con- 
sider it  under  two  terms,  each  important  and  significant. 

In  the  first  place  we  many  say  that  the  law  did  not 
normally  present  itself  to  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages 
as  a  tiling  that  was  made.  Law  was  primarily  custom,  a 
part  of  the  life  and  being  of  the  community,  but  so  far 
as  men  were  conscious  of  it  as  being  made — and  we  can 
see  the  beginnings  of  this  in  the  ninth  century,  and,  after 
a  chaotic  interval  in  the  tenth  century,  it  revived  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth — the  law  was  made  not  by  any  one 
person  or  assembly,  but  in  some  sense  by  the  acceptance 
of  the  whole  community.    The  idea  of  a  single  authorita- 


OF  SOCIAL  OEDER  117 

tive  legislator  was  wholly  alien  to  the  temper  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

In  the  second  place,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the 
system  of  law  was  thought  of  as  being  the  embodiment  of 
justice,  and  as  having  no  authority,  no  validity,  except  in 
so  far  as  it  had  this  character.  It  is  true  that  there  was 
an  authority  against  this,  that  of  St.  Augustine  in  his 
unhappy  attempt,  in  one  part  of  the  De  Civitate  Dei,  to 
eliminate  the  conception  of  justice  from  the  theory  of  the 
State,  but,  fortunately,  this  exercised  no  influence  on  the 
political  theory  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Cicero's  phrases,  in 
which  he  sets  out  the  principle  that  law  is  the  expression 
of  justice,  were  well  known  to  them,  partly  at  least 
through  the  fact  that  St.  Augustine  had  quoted  them  in 
another  chapter  of  the  same  work.  It  is  this  conception 
that  was  drawn  out  most  completely  by  the  great  jurists 
of  the  revived  study  of  the  Roman  law  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries.  "Jus,"  or  the  whole  system  of  law, 
is  the  manifestation  and  expression  of  mstitia. 

The  same  principle  was  also  set  out  under  another  set 
of  terms  especially  by  the  canonists,  that  is  under  the 
term  of  the  relation  of  the  law  of  any  particular  com- 
munity to  the  "natural  law."  The  "natural  law,"  Grat- 
ian  says,  is  superior  to  all  other  laws,  it  is  primitive  and 
unchangeable,  it  is  the  expression  of  the  will  of  God  Him- 
self; all  laws  or  constitutions,  whether  ecclesiastial  or 
secular,  which  are  contrary  to  the  "natural  law"  are  null 
and  void. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  all  that  was 
implied  in  history  by  the  conception  of  a  natural  law,  as 
a  principle  of  justice,  antecedent  in  authority  to  all  posi- 
tive or  civil  law ;  but  we  must  take  account  of  this,  for  it 
meant  that  while  mediieval  people  thought  of  law  as  the 
custom,  or  sometimes  as  the  determination  of  the  com- 


118  THE  MEDIEVAL  THEORY 

munity,  they  were  clear  that  it  had  no  authority,  no  valid- 
ity at  all  unless  it  was  the  expression  of  something  more 
than  either  custom  or  will. 

The  history  of  the  gradual  development  of  the  theory 
of  an  absolute  authority,  a  "sovereignty"  in  society,  has 
not  yet  been  fully  studied  or  written,  and  indeed,  much 
serious  work  will  have  to  be  done,  before  this  can  be 
attempted.  It  is,  however,  possible  to  recognize  some- 
thing of  what  happened. 

The  conception  of  the  supremacy  of  law  in  the  State 
was  profound  and  just,  but  it  is  also  true  that  it  was  not 
possible  that  it  should  continue  under  the  older  terms.  It 
became  evident  that  it  was  necessary  to  find  a  power 
behind  the  law,  greater  than  the  law,  which  could  change 
the  law.  For  some  centuries  men  were  content  to  modify 
or  reinterpret  custom,  to  adapt  it  to  the  changing  condi- 
tions and  requirements  of  life;  but  in  the  end  this  proved 
insufficient,  and  they  had  to  recognize  the  necessity 
of  a  legislative  power.  We  can  trace  the  beginnings  both 
of  the  process  and  of  the  theory  of  legislation  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  but  it  was  only  very 
slowly  that  men  became  fully  conscious  of  it,  and  for 
centuries  the  process  concealed  itself,  especially  in  a 
country  like  England,  behind  the  appeal  to  precedent. 
In  the  end,  however,  the  facts  triumphed  over  tradition, 
and  men  came,  however  slowly,  to  think  of  the  law  not  as 
itself  supreme  but  as  the  expression  of  the  will  of  a 
supreme  power  which  lay  behind  it.  This  is  the  meaning 
of  that  distinction  between  the  legislative  and  the  judical 
authority  which  has  on  the  whole  established  itself  as 
normally  useful. 

I  am  not  here  concerned  with  the  various  forms  under 
which  the  conception  has  found  expression.  In  some 
countries,  indeed  in  most  European  countries  after  the 


OF  SOCIAL  ORDER  119 

fifteenth  century,  the  supreme  authority  was  thought  to 
be  embodied  in  an  absolute  king,  in  others,  and  especially 
in  England,  in  an  "omnicompetent"  parliament.  The 
difference  is  profound  and  immensely  significant  in  his- 
tory, for  one  represents  the  principle  of  what  we  justly 
call  political  slavery,  the  other  at  least  the  possibility  of 
political  freedom.  But  in  spite  of  this  immense  differ- 
ence, for  our  present  purpose  the  distinction  is  not 
material.  What  we  are  here  concerned  with  is  the  de- 
velopment of  the  notion,  whether  under  one  form  or  the 
other,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  absolute  sovereign 
power. 

It  is  this  doctrine,  set  out  with  characteristic  and  para- 
doxical vehemence  by  Hobbes,  which  is  probably  the 
most  dangerous,  the  most  mischievous  foolishness  of 
political  theory.  For  in  Hobbes  this  is  the  expression  of 
a  complete  disbelief  in  any  moral  principle  in  society,  to 
him  the  terms  just  and  unjust  are  merely  the  euphemistic 
forms  under  which  men  express  the  sum  of  what  is  useful 
or  convenient.  To  him  men  seek  in  the  State  not  justice 
but  safety,  there  is  only  one  "right  of  nature"  (jus 
naturale)  and  that  is  self-preservation,  and  that  can  only 
be  secured  under  the  protection  of  an  absolute  and  un- 
limited power,  which,  for  its  own  convenience  or  ad- 
vantage, will  normally  secure  the  individual  man  from  the 
ferocious  aggressions  of  his  fellowmen. 

It  is  true  that  in  this  extreme  form  the  conception  of 
the  existence  of  an  absolute  sovereignty  has  not  been  often 
professed,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  theory  of  the  safety 
or  the  convenience  of  society  as  something  which  is 
beyond  right  and  wrong,  beyond  justice  or  injustice,  has 
often  found  its  expression  under  the  terms  of  the  theory 
of  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  State. 

It  was  natural  enough  that  a  similar  theory  should 


120       THE  THEORY  OF  SOCIAL  ORDER 

have  found  expression  in  the  actual  conditions  of  eco- 
nomic life  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteeth  centuries,  a 
theory  that  human  relations  in  the  economic  sphere  are  to 
be  determined  not  at  all  by  the  principles  of  justice,  but 
by  those  of  convenience.  The  natural  consequence  has 
been  that  the  characteristic  aspect  of  the  economic  re- 
lations of  men  in  the  industrial  world  is  the  dominance 
of  force,  or  what  is  in  other  terms  described  as  the  "class- 
war."  No  doubt  respectable  persons  pretend  that  this  is 
not  their  meaning  or  their  intention,  but  unhappily  for 
them,  facts  are  what  they  are,  and  the  social  condition 
of  Europe  is  a  sufficient  evidence  of  the  reality. 

I  am  not  here  dealing  with  the  economic  aspect  of 
society,  but  with  its  proper  characteristic  or  quality  under 
all  its  forms.  And  I  conclude  therefore  by  urging  that 
it  is  imperiously  necessary  that  we  should  recover  from 
the  superstition  of  absolute  authority,  and  that  we  may 
well  find  it  useful  to  return  to  and  learn  something  from  a 
time  when  men  firmly  believed  that  justice,  and  not  force, 
was  supreme.  No  doubt  it  is  a  mere  absurdity  to  think 
that  we  can  go  back,  or  to  imagine  that  the  immense  com- 
plexities of  modern  life  can  be  solved  by  a  mere  appeal  to 
great  principles.  The  task  of  the  modern  world  is  to 
work  out  these  principles  into  a  system  which  may  under 
our  conditions,  and  with  relation  to  the  necessary 
movement  of  life,  serve  to  embody  them. 


THE   OBSTACLE   OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

BY 

ARTHUR  J.  PENTY 

Author  of  Post-Industrialism,  Old  Worlds  for  New,  etc. 


122    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 


SYNOPSIS 

The  disproportion  that  exists  between  the  material  and  spiritual 
sides  of  modern  life.  The  conflict  between  industrial  and  spiritual 
values.  Luxury  a  disintegrating  social  influence.  Leads  to  catas- 
trophe. Luxury  and  unemployment.  The  quantitative  standard 
antipathetic  to  Christianity,  Current  fallacies  in  economics  rest  on 
the  acceptance  of  a  false  philosophy  of  life.  Self-expression  through 
work  a  spiritual  necessity.  Machinery  and  sub-division  of  labour. 
Over-specialization  the  bane  of  the  modern  world.  Intellectual 
specialization.  Necessity  of  placing  a  limit  to  specialization.  Crea- 
tive impulse  incompatible  with  the  sub-division  of  labour.  Industrial 
system  will  break  down  of  its  own  weight.  The  unemployed 
problem.  The  need  of  a  changed  conception  of  life.  Guilds  and 
the  Just  Price.  The  regulation  of  machinery.  Should  not  be  allowed 
to  supplant  craftsmanship.  Dependence  of  design  on  handicraft. 
Art  and  industrialism.  Opposition  of  quantitative  and  qualitative 
standards.  Fallacy  of  expecting  a  spontaneous  creation  of  art.  How 
the  change  will  come.  On  the  teaching  of  taste.  The  Christian 
temper  in  art.  Modernist  and  academic  standards.  Necessity  of  a 
religious  basis  for  art. 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  i:N^DUSTilIALISM    123 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTMALISM 

Not  the  least  of  the  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  a 
return  of  Christendom  is  the  monstrous  disproportion 
that  exists  between  the  material  and  spiritual  sides  of  life- 
For  centuries,  and  especially  since  the  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion, a  larger  and  larger  proportion  of  our  energies  have 
been  devoted  to  the  increase  and  development  of  our 
material  resources,  with  the  result  that  the  balance 
between  the  material  and  spiritual  sides  of  life  which  is 
indispensable  to  any  healthy  and  normal  civilization  has 
been  entirely  destroyed,  and  the  spiritual  life  almost 
crushed  out  of  existence  by  the  dead  weight  of  material 
preoccupations. 

The  fact  that  undue  concentration  on  material  things 
tends  to  choke  the  spiritual  life  was  over  and  over  again 
insisted  upon  by  Jesus  Christ.  "Take  ye  no  thought,  say- 
ing, What  shall  we  eat,  or  what  shall  we  drink,  or  where- 
withal shall  we  be  clothed  (for  after  all  these  things  do 
the  Gentiles  seek)  ?  for  your  heavenly  Father  knovveth 
that  ye  have  need  of  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  This  is  the  true  political 
economy;  it  is  the  political  economy  of  Christendom,  and 
it  is  because  in  some  measure  the  Mediaevalists  pursued 
this  ideal  that  they  were  not  perplexed  by  the  problem  of 
riches  and  poverty  as  it  perplexes  us  to-day.    Industrial- 


124    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

ism  is  the  organization  of  society  on  the  opposite  assump- 
tion, "Seek  ye  first,"  it  says,  "material  prosperity,  and 
all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  But  somehow 
or  other  it  does  not  work  out.  These  other  things  are 
not  added,  and  in  the  long  run  the  pursuit  of  riches  does 
not  even  bring  material  prosperity.  For  the  concentra- 
tion of  all  effort  and  mental  energy  upon  material  achieve- 
ment upsets  the  spiritual  equilibrium  of  society.  It  pro- 
duces contrasts  of  wealth  and  poverty,  and  out  of  these 
come  envy,  jealousy,  class  hatreds,  economic  and  military 
warfare,  and  finally  the  destruction  of  the  wealth  that  has 
been  so  laboriously  created.  For  no  society  built  on  a  lie 
can  endure. 

Our  industrial  society  exhibits  a  spirit  that  shows  itself 
irreconcilably  hostile  to  all  the  higher  interests  of  man- 
kind, and  all  men  who  care  for  spiritual  things  are  con- 
scious of  this  antagonism.  Yet  as  a  nation  we  lack  the 
courage  to  face  the  fact  that  Industrialism  is  incompatible 
with  the  spiritual  life.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  ma- 
terial development  of  civilization  was  in  its  infancy,  there 
were  not  wanting  men  to  protest  with  all  their  might 
against  the  corrupting  influence  of  wealth  and  luxury.  St. 
Francis,  in  the  thirteenth  century  even,  sought  to  counter 
the  evil  by  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Poverty,  and  at  a  later 
date  sumptuary  laws  were  enacted  to  put  a  boundary  to 
the  growth  of  personal  extravagance,  for  many  people 
saw  the  social  dangers  attendant  upon  an  increase  of 
luxury.  In  Germany,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the 
most  prosperous  country  in  Europe,  extravagance  and 
luxury  grew  at  an  alarming  pace  towards  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  Many  of  the  merchants  had  become 
richer  than  kings  and  emperors,  and  vanity  had  prompted 
them  to  give  visible  evidence  of  their  great  riches  in  the 
adoption   of   a   higher   and  higher   standard   of   living. 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM    125 

Feasting  and  gambling  increased,  while  extravagance  in 
dress  became  the  order  of  the  day.  Commenting  on  this, 
Wimpheling,  who  was  one  of  the  most  widely  read 
authors  of  the  period,  said  that  "wealth  and  prosperity 
are  attended  with  great  dangers,  as  we  see  exemplified : 
they  induce  extravagance  in  dress,  in  banqueting,  and 
what  is  still  worse,  they  engender  a  desire  for  still  more. 
This  desire  debases  the  mind  of  man  and  degenerates  into 
contempt  of  God,  His  Church,  and  His  Commandments." 
And  experience  was  to  prove  it  led  to  social  catastrophe. 
The  peril  arises  from  the  fact  that,  as  extravagance 
increases,  a  kind  of  social  compulsion  is  brought  to  bear 
upon  others  to  live  up  to  it  whether  they  can  afford  to  do 
so  or  not,  and  as  only  the  rich  can  afford  to  keep  up  with 
the  standard  thus  set,  a  point  is  soon  reached  when  the 
need  of  money  is  very  widely  felt.  When  that  point  was 
reached  in  Germany  the  same  thing  happened  that  has 
happened  with  us  to-day.  Nobody  wanted  to  do  any 
really  productive  work,  but  everybody  wanted  to  go  into 
trade  where  money  was  to  be  made.  Mercantile  houses, 
shops,  and  taverns  multiplied  inordinately,  and  complaints 
were  made  that  there  was  no  money  but  only  debts,  and 
that  whole  districts  were  drained  by  usury.  The  growth 
of  this  state  of  things  was  followed  by  the  attempt  which 
each  class  made  to  save  itself  from  bankruptcy  by  trans- 
ferring its  burdens  on  to  the  shoulders  of  the  class 
beneath  it,  which  led  to  the  progressive  impoverishment 
of  the  working  class,  who  had  to  bear  the  brunt  because 
the  burden  could  be  shifted  no  farther.  Then  there  arose 
a  bitter  enmity  between  the  propertied  and  the  unproper- 
tied  classes,  and  class  hatred  increased  in  intensity  until 
finally  it  led  in  1524  to  the  Peasants'  War,  which  con- 
vulsed almost  every  corner  of  the  Empire  from  the  Alps 
to  the  Baltic. 


126    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

We  see  then  that  in  attacking  extravagance  and  luxury 
the  Church  has  been  led  by  a  true  social  instinct.  But  it 
becomes  daily  more  evident  that  to  attack  extravagance 
and  luxury  is  not  enough.  It  is  necessary  to  attack  those 
general  principles  and  assumptions  of  our  social  and 
industrial  system  which  of  their  own  nature  tend  to  pro- 
mote such  vices.  This  fact  has  of  late  received  some 
recognition  by  the  Church.  The  Report  of  the  Arch- 
bishop's Committee  on  "Christianity  and  Industrial 
Problems"  marks  an  advance  in  thought  to  the  extent 
that  it  has  broken  away  from  that  purely  personal 
explanation  of  social  phenomena  which  satisfied  most 
Churchmen  until  yesterday,  and  has  recognized  that 
"charity"  with  the  Church  has  not  been  interpreted 
(as  it  should  be)  as  "a  sort  of  glorified  justice"  that 
"looks  at  least  as  much  to  the  prevention  of  evil  as 
to  its  cure.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  meant  far  too 
exclusively  what  may  be  called  ambulance  work  for 
mankind — the  picking  up  of  the  wounded  and  the  curing 
of  their  wounds."  "We  have,"  says  the  Report, 
"neglected  to  attack  the  forces  of  wrong.  We  have  been 
content  with  the  ambulance  work  when  we  ought  to 
have  been  assaulting  the  strongholds  of  evil." 

In  laying  down  the  broad  principles  which  should 
govern  the  conduct  of  Christians  in  their  relation  to  social 
questions  nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  this 
Report.  But  as  it  proceeds,  the  clear  vision  that  marks 
the  early  part  of  the  Report  gets  bedimmed  and  the 
writers  get  entangled  in  the  economic  defences  of  the  ex- 
isting system.  Their  protests  are  silenced  by  those  pleas 
of  economic  necessity  behind  which  the  upholders  of  the 
existing  order  take  cover.  Thus  while  on  the  one  hand 
luxury  is  attacked,  on  the  other  the  Report  hesitates  to 
carry  its  attack  to  its  logical  conclusion  by  condemning 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM     127 

root  and  branch  those  quantitative  conceptions  upon 
which  our  industrial  system  is  based.  For  it  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  the  progressive  growth  of  luxury  is 
a  necessary  condition  of  the  continued  existence  of  a 
system  that  is  based  upon  conceptions  of  indefinite  in- 
dustrial expansion.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  people 
nowadays  are  goaded  by  advertisers  into  becoming  luxur- 
ious. Indeed,  unless  a  man  is  poor,  his  difficulty  now- 
adays is  how  to  avoid  becoming  luxurious,  for  circum- 
stances combine  to  force  the  individual  along  the  path  of 
luxury  whether  he  likes  it  or  not,  and  people  succumb  to 
luxurious  tendencies  because  they  are  afraid  to  appear 
mean.  It  may  be  admitted  that  expenditure  need  not  be 
luxurious  though  it  pass  the  bounds  of  necessity.  Ex- 
penditure on  the  arts,  for  instance,  is  of  this  nature.  But 
this  is  not  the  kind  of  expenditure  that  is  encouraged  by 
latter-day  conceptions  of  industrial  expansion.  On  the 
contrary,  what  is  encouraged  in  every  sort  of  vain  and 
useless  expenditure  on  all  kinds  of  things  that  people 
would  be  better  without ;  while  the  dilemma  in  which  we 
are  placed  is  that  such  useless  expenditure  is  necessary  to 
keep  the  wheels  of  industry  running.  There  is  plenty  of 
unemployment  to-day,  yet  under  our  existing  system  if 
the  rich  could  be  induced  to  abandon  luxury  unemploy- 
ment would  be  actually  increased.  Hence  it  is  that  until 
we  have  the  courage  to  attack  the  principles  upon  which 
the  industrial  system  is  built  there  can  be  no  escape  from 
this  fundamental  dilemma. 

This  kind  of  inconsistency  must  come  to  an  end.  We 
must  frankly  recognize  that  the  purely  quantitative 
standard  is  antipathetic  to  everything  that  Christianity 
stands  for,  for  not  until  we  do  shall  we  be  able  to  translate 
our  ideals  into  the  terms  of  actuality.  We  must  oppose 
the  conception  of  "maximum  production"  with  that  of  a 


128    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTKIALISM 

"sufficient  production."  Quantity  up  to  a  certain  point 
of  course  we  must  have,  but  we  must  break  with  the 
theory  that  exalts  a  standard  of  quantity  as  the  final  test 
of  industrial  righteousness,  since  so  long  as  we  accept 
such  a  standard,  the  time  will  never  come  when  we  can 
say  we  have  produced  enough.  Appearances  \yill  always 
be  against  a  return  to  sanity,  because  when  production 
proceeds  beyond  a  certain  point  it  upsets  distribution ;  and 
by  upsetting  distribution,  competition  is  increased  and  un- 
employment and  poverty  is  created.  The  widespread 
existence  of  such  poverty  in  turn  lends  a  colour  to  the 
demand  for  still  more  production,  and  so  we  go  on  from 
bad  to  worse,  driven  from  one  desperate  expedient  to 
another  in  a  vain  effort  to  escape  from  the  consequences 
of  exalting  the  quantitative  standard.  The  remedy  is  for 
us  to  refuse  any  longer  to  sacrifice  Christian  principles  to 
economic  expediency.  We  can  be  perfectly  assured  that 
what  is  wrong  morally  is  bad  economics;  and  that  pro- 
fessors of  economics  who  maintain  the  contrary  suffer 
from  a  constitutional  inability  to  distinguish  between 
appearance  and  reality. 

When  we  search  for  an  explanation  of  current  fallacies 
of  economics  we  find  that  they  rest  finally  on  a  false 
philosophy  of  life — on  the  belief  that  work  at  the  best  is  a 
disagreeable  necessity  that  it  is  desirable  to  reduce  to  a 
minimum.  In  former  times  it  was  the  normal  thing  for 
men  to  find  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  their  work.  But 
this  is  no  longer  the  case.  The  vast  majority  of  people 
to-day  do  not  look  for  any  such  pleasure  or  satisfaction. 
They  work  in  order  to  get  money  to  live.  Their  hearts 
are  not  in  their  work,  their  real  interests  are  outside, 
either  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  or  in  some  hobby  or  occu- 
pation extraneous  to  their  daily  work.  Not  only  do 
they  do  as  little  as  they  can,  but  what  they  do  is  done  in  a 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM    129 

venal  and  slovenly  way.  The  grudging  and  resentful 
temper  engendered  by  their  daily  work  infects  the  whole 
of  life.  Character  deterioriates :  men  become  restless 
and  dissatisfied.  It  would  matter  little  if  the  hours  of 
work  were  reduced  to  four  or  even  two  hours  a  day.  They 
would  still  be  restless  and  dissatisfied.  For  they  would 
still  be  in  a  fundamentally  wrong  relation  to  life,  and  that 
fact  would  vitiate  the  extra  leisure  they  had  gained.  Men 
are  not  men  until  they  have  found  their  true  vocation  and 
ministry.  When  Carlyle  said,  "Blessed  is  the  man  who 
has  found  his  work :  let  him  ask  no  other  blessedness," 
he  was  expressing  one  of  the  primary  truths  of  Christian 
ethics. 

All  Christians  must  deplore  this  demoralization  that 
has  overtaken  the  modern  world,  and  many  Christian 
moralists,  recognizing  the  evil,  have  attempted  to  combat 
it.  But  they  have  all  failed.  They  have  failed  to  establish 
points  of  contact  with  the  modern  mind,  and  this  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  have  chosen  to  ignore  the  vital 
facts  of  the  situation.  With  men  to-day  as  in  the  past  it 
would  be  the  normal  and  natural  thing  for  them  to  find 
pleasure  in  their  work  were  it  not  that  they  are  prevented 
from  doing  so  by  circumstances.  Their  work  fails  to 
inspire  them  for  two  reasons.  Firstly  because  as  it  is 
done  at  the  dictation  and  in  the  interests  of  profiteers, 
they  cannot  feel  the  call  of  service;  and  secondly,  because 
under  our  industrial  system  work  has  become  so  monot- 
onous that  everyone  is  bored  by  it. 

Recognizing  these  facts,  any  analysis  of  the  problem  of 
work  and  industry  that  would  grapple  with  the  realities 
of  the  situation  must  reassert  the  claims  of  the  producer. 
It  may  be  true  that  the  needs  of  the  consumer  are  the 
primary  basis  of  any  economic  system.  Yet  the  producer 
has  equal  claims  for  consideration,  since  an  analysis  based 


130     THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

entirely  upon  the  needs  of  the  consumer  will,  if  carried  to 
its  logical  conclusion,  lead  inevitably  to  the  enslavement 
and  degradation  of  the  producer,  for  instead  of  being 
regarded  as  a  human  being  he  w^ill  come  to  be  regarded 
merely  as  an  instrument  for  the  increase  of  wealth.  To 
such  an  extent  has  development  proceeded  in  this  direction 
that  the  only  way  to  restore  a  condition  of  normality  in 
industry  is  to  assert  the  claims  of  the  producer,  affirming 
self-expression  through  work  to  be  a  spiritual  necessity. 
The  moment  we  assert  this  we  come  into  collision  with 
Industrialism  as  a  machine  producing  wealth,  no  matter 
how  equitably  its  products  could  under  some  future 
system  be  distributed,  because  it  denies  all  opportunities 
whatsoever  for  self-expression. 

Industrialism  destroys  interest  in  work  because  it  tends 
towards  an  ever  increasing  specialization.  This  is  the 
key  to  the  problem.  We  are  accustomed  to  associate  the 
evil  with  the  spread  of  machine  production,  but  strictly 
speaking  the  evil  does  not  reside  in  machinery,  but  in  the 
subdivision  of  labour  which  preceded  the  introduction 
of  machinery  and  which  is  responsible  for  its  misapplica- 
tion. And  here  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between 
the  division  of  labour  which  is  legitimate  and  the  subdi- 
vision of  labour  which  is  illegitimate.  The  former  is  a 
necessity  in  every  civilized  community,  for  it  is  obvious 
that  a  man  cannot  supply  all  his  own  needs,  since  to  some 
extent  he  is  inevitably  dependent  upon  others.  No  sooner 
did  civilization  begin  to  develop  than  this  necessity 
brought  about  the  specialization  of  men  into  different 
trades.  One  man  became  a  weaver,  another  a  carpenter, 
and  so  forth.  Up  to  this  point  the  division  of  labour  is 
justified,  not  merely  because  it  is  a  necessity  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  because  it  enlarges  the  opportunities  of  expres- 
sion of  the  individual.     What,  however,  we  understand 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM    131 

by  the  subdivision  of  labour  is  measures  taken  to  increase 
the  output  in  the  interests  of  profiteering  by  splitting  up  a 
trade  into  a  great  number  of  separate  processes.  This 
we  must  condemn,  because  by  reducing  men  to  autom- 
atons it  undermines  their  moral  and  spiritual  life  and 
distintegrates  personality,  while  it  leads  inevitably  to 
sweating  and  economic  insecurity.  This  system  came 
into  existence  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  classical  example  being  that  eulogized  by  Adam  Smith 
in  Tlie  Wealth  of  Nations,  namely  pin-making,  in  which 
industry,  he  explained,  it  takes  twenty  men  to  make  a  pin, 
each  man  being  specialized  on  a  single  process  for  a  life- 
time. In  our  day  this  method  has  reached  its  logical  con- 
clusion in  the  system  known  as  "scientific  management." 
The  subdivision  of  labour  attacks  the  craft;  scientific 
management  attacks  the  man.  Its  acknowledged  object 
is  further  to  increase  output  by  the  elimination  of  all  the 
motions  of  the  arms  and  fingers  and  body  that  do  not 
directly  contribute  to  the  fashioning  of  the  article  under 
process  of  manufacture.  As  such  it  completes  the  de- 
humanization  and  despiritualization  of  labour  begun  by 
the  subdivision  of  labour. 

Now  it  is  apparent  that  the  value  to  be  placed  upon  such 
a  method  of  work  will  depend  upon  our  philosophy  of 
life.  If  we  are  materialists  and  are  convinced  that  the 
great  end  of  life  is  to  increase  wealth — profit  and  com- 
modities— regardless  of  the  use  to  which  the  commodities 
are  put  or  the  degradation  of  the  workers  through  the 
methods  employed  in  their  production,  then  we  shall 
regard  even  such  a  system  as  scientific  management  as 
evidence  of  progress.  But  if  we  believe  as  Christians  in 
the  aboriginal  and  imperishable  worth  of  the  individual, 
we  shall  condemn  the  system  as  essentially  anti-Christian. 
We  shall  maintain  that  any  increase  of  wealth  obtained 


132    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

by  such  means  carries  with  it  a  curse,  inasmuch  as  it 
ignores  the  sacredness  of  human  personality  and  degrades 
man  to  the  level  of  a  machine. 

The  principle  of  the  subdivision  of  labour  has  pene- 
trated into  every  department  of  human  activity.  Over- 
specialization  is  the  bane  of  the  modern  world.  It  affects 
the  intellectual  world,  not  perhaps  to  the  same  degree, 
but  with  results  that  are  as  potent  for  evil  as  those  which 
we  deplore  in  the  world  of  labour.  For  just  as  the 
machine-tender  becomes  atrophied  in  certain  directions, 
so  the  intellectual  specialist  develops  one  side  of  his  mind 
at  the  expense  of  other  sides,  and  thereby  loses  that 
balance  and  judgment  which  are  essential  to  work  of 
permanent  value.  It  is  said  that  in  Germany  before  the 
War  specialization  among  intellectual  workers  had 
reached  such  a  degree  of  development  that  men  tended  to 
become  monomaniacs  on  one  subject,  or  even  one  small 
part  of  a  subject,  to  the  detriment  of  general  culture. 
This  was  the  Kultur  that  gave  to  the  Germans  their 
sense  of  superiority  over  other  peoples  and  was  a  contrib- 
utory cause  of  the  War.  Specialization  up  to  a  certain 
point  we  must  have  if  civilization  is  to  exist  at  all.  But 
a  limit  must  be  placed  somewhere  if  men  are  not  to  dis- 
integrate morally,  intellectually,  and  spiritually,  and  to 
imperil  the  stability  of  civilization.  An  intimate  connec- 
tion exists  between  the  convulsions  which  have  overtaken 
society  and  this  over-specialization ;  since  when  special- 
ization is  complete  it  breaks  up  society,  because  the 
co-ordinating  idea  which  binds  men  together  no  longer 
operates.  It  is  the  corollary  of  that  isolation  of  the  soul 
which  Mr.  Belloc  rightly  sees  as  the  fruit  of  the 
Reformation. 

I  said  that  to  the  development  of  specialization  a  limit 
must  be  placed  somewhere.     That  limit,  I  submit,  should 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM    133 

be  placed  at  the  point  craft  development  had  reached 
before  the  division  of  labour  degenerated  into  the  sub- 
division of  labour.  To  suffer  specialization  to  proceed 
farther  is,  to  use  an  engineering  term  "to  trespass  on 
the  margin  of  safety."  In  calculating  the  strengths  of 
the  material  he  uses,  the  engineer  keeps  well  within  the 
margin  of  safety,  for  he  knows  that  all  structures  suffer 
from  wear  and  tear  and  may  at  some  time  or  other  be 
subjected  to  an  exceptional  strain,  and  therefore  in 
common  prudence  he  makes  allowances  for  such  contin- 
gencies in  his  calculations,  distinguishing  clearly  between 
a  "safe  load"  and  a  "breaking  load."  A  sane  sociology 
would  make  a  corresponding  destruction.  It  would 
recognize  that  there  was  a  limit  beyond  which  produc- 
tivity could  not  be  increased  without  imperilling  the 
stability  of  the  social  structure.  It  would  condemn  the 
subdivision  of  labour  because  it  trespassed  on  the  margin 
of  psychological  safety  and  indefinite  industrial  expan- 
sion because  it  trespassed  on  the  margin  of  economic 
safety.  Failure  to  recognize  the  truth  of  this  principle 
is  responsible  for  the  disintegration  of  society  to-day. 
Though  it  is  only  since  the  War  that  our  peril  has 
received  any  public  recognition,  the  process  of  disinte- 
gration has  nevertheless  been  at  work  since  the  seven- 
teenth century,  when  the  subdivision  of  labour  was  insti- 
tuted. If,  then,  society  is  to  be  reconstructed  on  a 
stable  basis,  productivity  must  not  be  allowed  to  trespass 
on  the  margin  of  safety;  in  other  words,  we  must 
repudiate  the  subdivision  of  labour  and  return  to  the 
handicrafts  as  the  basis  of  production,  using  machinery 
only  in  an  accessory  way. 

It  is  now  some  seventy  years  since  Ruskin  wrote  his 
impassioned  protests  against  the  human  degradation 
involved  in  the  subdivision  of  labour.     Yet  it  is  onlv 


134    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

of  late  that  any  signs  have  been  forthcoming  that  his 
protests  have  not  been  entirely  in  vain.  Thus  in  the 
Report  of  the  American  Committee  on  "The  Church  and 
Industrial  Reconstruction"  we  read :  "The  tendency  to 
regard  labour  simply  as  a  means  of  production  has  been 
greatly  intensified  by  modern  machinery  which  has  often 
had  the  effect  of  reducing  the  man  almost  to  the  level 
of  a  machine.  He  is  left  to  do  what  inventive  genius  is 
unable  to  design  a  machine  to  do.  The  process  of  man- 
ufacture is  carried  to  a  higher  and  higher  degree  of 
specialization,  until  the  worker's  task  tends  to  become 
a  deadening  routine  and  he  himself  hardly  more  than 
a  semi-mechanical  part  of  the  factory.  These  conditions 
almost  inevitably  result  in  the  loss  of  the  sense  of  personal 
creation  and  fine  craftsmanship.  In  the  simpler  days 
before  the  advent  of  large-scale  production  the  worker 
helped  to  plan  the  work  and  with  his  own  strength  and 
skill  to  carry  it  into  execution.  In  such  a  task  a  man 
could  really  find  self-expression.  But  now  he  does 
not  plan  the  work  or  any  part  of  it,  and  everything  except 
the  monotonous  details  is  accomplished  by  an  automatic 
machine.  The  work  no  longer  seems  really  his.  The 
factory,  therefore,  means  barren  monotony  for  millions 
of  men,  deadens  their  imagination,  and  robs  them  of 
any  sense  of  creative  joy,  and  in  these  results  we  have 
had  an  altogether  too  complacent  acquiescence.  If  we 
are  seriously  concerned  about  the  development  of  per- 
sonality we  ought  to  be  earnestly  seeking  ways  of  afford- 
ing to  modern  workers  opportunity  for  self-expression 
in  their  tasks  by  giving  them  industrial  education  and 
making  it  possible  for  them  to  share  in  directing  the 
industry  as  a  whole.  At  the  very  least  we  ought  to 
guarantee  them  sufficient  leisure  for  self-development  in 
other  activities  outside  the  factory.     We  have  shown  an 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTEIALISM    135 

inexcusable  apathy  towards  this  destruction  of  human 
values  in  the  process  of  producing  things.  We  have  been 
concerned  with  impersonal  goods,  with  profits  and  divi- 
dends, forgetting  that  the  factor  we  indifferently  spoke 
of  as  'labour'  is  nothing  less  than  immortal  souls  for 
whom  the  Lord  Christ  died."^ 

Well,  it  is  something  to  get  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
problem,  but  the  measures  proposed  in  the  report  will 
not,  I  fear,  get  us  anywhere,  for  the  real  issues  are  not 
faced.  The  writers  of  the  Report  see  our  industrial 
system  as  an  established  fact,  and  they  are  cowed  and 
overawed  by  it  much  in  the  same  way  that  dwellers  in 
tropical  latitudes  are  said  to  be  cowed  and  overawed  by 
the  stupendous  nature  they  see  around  them.  And  so 
instead  of  facing  the  issue,  instead  of  frankly  recognizing 
the  fact  that  a  system  of  industry  that  is  built  upon  the 
degradation  of  the  workers  must  be  abolished,  they 
seek  to  evade  the  dilemma  in  the  typical  modern  fashion 
by  recommending  palliatives  which  experience  should 
already  have  taught  us  effect  nothing. 

If  one  may  take  the  Selected  Bibliography  attached 
to  this  volume  as  indicating  the  lines  on  which  its  authors 
think  industrial  reform  should  proceed,  the  idea  appar- 
ently is  to  salute  Henry  Ford  as  a  prophet;  and  to  seek 
an  escape  from  the  evil  of  over-specialization,  not  by 
its  abolition,  but  by  constantly  changing  the  workers 
round,  so  that  instead  of  condemning  them  for  a  lifetime 
to  the  performance  of  a  single  task  they  would  move 
from  one  specialism  to  another,  and  to  supplement  such 
experience  by  a  scheme  of  technical  education  which  will 
enable  them  to  see  the  thing  as  a  whole.  By  such  means 
we  are  told  the  creative  impulse  will  be  restored  to 
industry,  and  all  will  be  well.     The  idea  is  meeting  with 

'  Pp.  38-39. 


136    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  mDUSTRIALISM 

much  support  as  may  well  be  imagined,  for  all  ideas 
which  do  not  demand  of  us  real  sacrifices  are  popular 
until  their  inadequacy  is  found  out. 

Still  it  won't  do.  The  creative  impulse  in  man  will  not 
be  liberated  by  such  means  any  more  than  a  man  would 
be  liberated  from  prison  because  he  enjoyed  the  privilege 
of  being  moved  from  cell  to  cell.  And  for  this  reason, 
that  the  element  of  choice  as  to  how  anything  should  be 
done  would  be  entirely  missing,  and  liberty  of  choice  is 
an  indispensable  accompaniment  of  the  exercise  of  the 
creative  impulse.  Hence  we  see  that  any  such  compro- 
mise does  not  really  change  the  problem,  and  that  the 
liberation  of  the  creative  impulse  is  incompatible  with 
the  existence  of  the  subdivision  of  labour. 

The  difficulty  of  securing  acceptance  for  a  truth  that 
is  self-evident  to  men  with  experience  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  so  few  writers  have  any  industrial  experience  to 
build  upon.  As  the  effects  of  the  system  spread  and 
begin  to  alter  their  own  lives  they  become  in  an  indirect 
way  conscious  of  the  fact  that  the  industrial  system  sup- 
presses creative  instincts  within  themselves  and  so  they 
rebel.  But  what  is  the  nature  of  such  instincts  and  what 
is  the  kind  of  industrial  conditions  favourable  to  their 
expression  they  have  no  notion  whatsoever,  and  being 
therefore  without  any  positive  experience  they  hesitate 
to  challenge  such  an  established  fact  as  the  industrial 
system.  The  tragedy  of  the  situation,  however,  is  that 
while  owing  to  lack  of  experience  they  do  not  know  the 
truth  themselves,  they  are  unwilling  to  accept  the 
opinion  of  craftsmen  and  artists  who  having  had  exper- 
ience have  some  right  to  be  heard.  Meanwhile  the 
industrial  system  proceeds  according  to  the  laws  of  its 
own  being  regardless  of  consequences.  The  few  skilled 
men  necessary  to  its  continuance  are  rapidly  disappearing, 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM    137 

and  as  the  system  trains  no  successors  it  is  clear  that 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  there  will  be  no  com- 
petence left  to  run  it.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the 
system  breaks  down  of  its  own  weight. 

So  much  may  be  seen  clearly  as  the  logical  con- 
sequence of  the  persistent  refusal  of  the  modern  world 
to  listen  to  the  advice  of  anyone  who  has  had  real 
experience  of  the  problem.  If  we  are  to  learn  at  all  it 
would  seem  it  can  only  be  through  suffering.  Our 
statesmen  and  publicists  have  for  centuries  refused  to 
look  facts  in  the  face.  They  have  lived  on  the  principle 
of  putting  off  the  evil  day,  and  now  it  can  be  put  off  no 
longer.  The  unemployed  are  in  our  streets,  and  I 
venture  to  say  they  will  remain  there  until  the  facts 
are  faced.  Our  markets  are  contracting  and  will  remain 
contracted,  for  during  the  War  many  of  our  former 
customers  have  taken  to  manufacturing  all  kinds  of 
things  for  themselves  because  we  could  not  supply  their 
needs,  and  they  will  continue  to  do  so.  Meanwhile  auto- 
matic machinery  is  being  introduced  into  industry  after 
industry  and  the  workers  are  beginning  to  realize  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  problem  of  machinery.  The 
men  who  are  unemployed  are  beginning  to  talk  about  it. 
They  see  that  if  with  contracted  markets  more  machinery 
is  to  be  used  there  is  no  chance  of  them  ever  getting  back 
to  work.  The  newspapers  have  not  laid  bare  this  aspect 
of  the  subject  yet,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  facts 
will  not  be  faced  until  the  last  quack  remedy  has  been 
tried. 

My  belief  that  the  present  industrial  system  will  be 
transformed  is  not  then  based  upon  any  expectation  that 
the  majority  of  men  will  so  long  as  they  can  avoid  doing 
so  demand  change,  but  on  the  conviction  that  as  the 
present  system  is  becoming  rapidly  unworkable  we  must 


138    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

change  or  perish.  Meanwhile,  if  a  nucleus  of  clear 
thinking  could  be  created,  when  the  crisis  does  arrive 
there  would  be  something  around  which  thought  and 
activity  could  crystallize,  and  in  this  connection  it  is  to 
be  observed  that  nothing  is  any  use  at  all  that  does  not 
go  down  to  fundamentals.  The  present  system  with  all 
its  evils  rests  finally  on  a  certain  conception  of  life,  on 
the  idea  that  a  life  of  leisure  and  luxury  is  the  thing 
to  be  aimed  at.  It  is  the  general  prevalence  of  this  ideal 
that  is  responsible  for  the  race  for  wealth  and  the  mis- 
application of  machinery,  which  naturally  flows  from  it. 
When  we  realize  these  things,  we  realize  that  any  reform 
to  be  effective  demands  as  its  accompaniment  a  changed 
ideal  of  life.  It  means  that  the  ideal  of  leisure  be  sup- 
planted by  one  of  work  and  service  on  a  basis  of  function. 
The  implications  of  such  a  changed  ideal  of  life  are 
simply  enormous.  It  would  mean  in  the  first  place  that 
occupations  would  not  be  esteemed  in  proportion  as  they 
win  money,  afford  comfort  and  leisure,  and  confer  indi- 
vidual power  and  distinction,  but  in  proportion  as  they 
afford  the  individual  the  opportunity  of  doing  work  that 
is  useful  and  desirable  for  the  purposes  of  human  life. 
It  would  mean  that  instead  of  trade  and  commerce  being 
exalted  at  the  expense  of  agriculture  and  the  produc- 
tive arts,  agriculture  and  craftsmanship  would  come  to 
be  exalted  in  the  future  as  in  the  past  as  the  foundation 
of  national  prosperity  and  well-being,  and  measures 
would  be  taken  to  protect  all  such  workers  against  their 
position  being  undermined  by  speculators  in  finance  by 
the  maintenance  of  a  Just  and  Fixed  Price  under  a 
system  of  Guilds  covering  the  whole  of  society. 

In  addition  it  would  be  necessary  to  regulate  machin- 
ery, in  the  first  place,  because  there  can  be  no  economic 
security  for  the  worker  so  long  as  his  means  of  liveli- 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  IINTDUSTRIALISM     139 

hood  is  at  the  mercy  of  a  new  invention;  and  in  the 
next,  because  it  is  an  essential  condition  of  any  decent 
and  stable  social  order  that  machinery  be  brought  into 
subjection  by  the  abolition  of  all  machinery  that  involves 
the  subdivision  of  labour,  and  this  necessitates  regulation. 
Moralists  who  affirm  that  no  such  regulation  is  required, 
inasmuch  as  machinery  is  non-moral  and  therefore  its 
application  will  be  good  or  bad  according  to  the  motive 
that  inspires  its  use,  should,  to  be  consistent,  deny  the 
necessity  of  laws  and  regulations  in  every  other  depart- 
ment of  activity,  since  the  case  for  regulating  machinery 
rests  finally  on  precisely  the  same  grounds  as  any  other 
kind  of  regulation :  First,  to  restrain  those  whose 
motives  are  bad  from  injuring  society  by  their  actions, 
and,  secondly,  to  prevent  those  who  with  the  best  of 
motives  do  tilings  through  ignorance  which  in  their  ulti- 
mate effects  are  harmful. 

If  these  principles  were  observed,  the  amount  of 
machinery  used  in  the  future  would  be  negligible  in 
comparison  with  what  is  used  to-day,  and  it  would  so 
obviously  be  performing  the  function  which  it  professes 
to  perform  that  no  case  could  be  made  out  against  its 
use.  This  would  mean  that  machinery  would  not  be 
allowed  to  trespass  on  the  domain  of  the  crafts,  but  its 
use  would  be  confined  to  doing  the  "donkey  work" 
which  lies  at  the  base  of  production.  The  point  at  which 
its  use  would  be  forbidden  would  be  where  a  man  has  to 
think  more  about  the  machinery  than  the  work  he  is 
doing,  and  where  those  directing  industry  have  to  think 
more  about  how  they  are  to  keep  their  plant  running 
than  of  the  service  which  their  activities  render  to  the 
community.  The  application  of  this  principle,  however, 
involves  other  things.  It  presupposes  that  simultan- 
eously efforts  are  made  to  restore  the  Guilds,  and  to  re- 


140    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

establish  communal  traditions  of  art  and  craftsmanship, 
since  apart  from  the  positive  values  that  such  traditions 
would  give  the  problem  of  exactly  where  to  draw  the 
line  could  not  be  easily  determined. 

At  this  point  we  find  ourselves  drawn  into  the  con- 
troversies that  surround  the  revival  of  the  arts.  Twenty 
years  ago  all  who  were  interested  in  the  subject  would 
have  agreed  that  the  re-establishment  of  any  such  tradi- 
tions was  dependent  upon  a  revival  of  handicraft.  Fol- 
lowing Ruskin  and  Morris,  they  would  have  affirmed 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  art  apart  from  handicraft, 
inasmuch  as  any  new  ideas  in  design  arise  from  experi- 
mental handicraft,  just,  I  might  add,  in  the  same  way 
that  new  ideas  in  science  are  discovered  by  similarly 
experimenting  with  material.  But  of  late  years,  owing 
to  the  failure  of  the  Arts  and  Craft  Movement  to  solve 
the  economic  problems  in  which  it  found  itself  involved, 
attempts  have  been  made  to  adjust  art  to  the  require- 
ments of  machine  industry.  All  such  compromisers 
would  I  believe  admit  that  at  the  best  such  machine  art 
was  on  a  distinctly  lower  plane  than  that  of  handicraft. 
But  seeing  no  option  in  the  matter,  the  Design  and  Indus- 
tries Association  was  organized  to  make  the  best  of  a 
bad  job  by  bringing  art  into  relation  to  modern  industry. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  their  experience  has  been 
equally  disappointing.  Like  the  Arts  and  Crafts,  they 
have  here  and  there  been  able  to  make  a  little  headway. 
They  have  been  able  to  get  a  few  utilitarian  things  of 
better  design  on  the  market,  but  there  is  no  denying 
that  they  have  failed  as  miserably  as  the  Arts  and  Crafts 
Movement  to  reform  industrialism,  which  as  a  whole 
exhibits  a  spirit  entirely  antagonistic  to  any  change  in  an 
artistic  direction,  and  this  is  no  wonder,  for  the  demands 
of  art  and  industrialism  are  mutually  exclusive.     Thus 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM     141 

the  most  fundamental  requirement  of  the  growth  of 
any  new  tradition  of  art  is  continuity  of  effort  in  a 
certain  given  direction.  A  tradition  is  a  growth,  and  it 
becomes  full  and  rich  in  its  capacities  of  expression 
through  work  along  certain  continuous  lines.  But 
industrialism  denies  this  condition.  Its  interest  in  out- 
put forbids  it  to  work  with  continuity.  On  the  contrary 
it  seeks  to  create  new  demand  by  constantly  changing  the 
fashion.  Change  of  fashion,  it  will  be  seen,  means  that 
every  year  the  basis  is  changed,  and  therefore  there  is 
no  continuity  and  therefore  no  growth.  In  the  same  way 
a  hundred  other  interests  militate  against  a  growth  of 
tradition.  Such  experiences  drive  us  inevitably  to  the 
conclusion  that  a  quantitative  standard  and  a  qualitative 
standard  are  opposed  and  that  finally  no  compromise  is 
possible  between  them. 

Yet  people  are  unwilling  to  admit  this,  for  to  admit 
it  seems  to  most  people  a  gospel  of  sheer  despair.  Hence 
it  has  happened,  partly  as  a  result  of  these  failures,  and 
partly  as  a  misunderstanding  as  to  the  democratic  nature 
of  art,  that  of  late  years  the  theory  has  been  advanced 
that  the  revival  of  art  is  not  to  come  from  professional 
artists  and  craftsmen — that  is  from  the  people  who 
think  about  it,  but  from  the  masses  who  don't — whose 
creative  impulse  will  find  spontaneous  expression  when 
they  are  liberated  from  economic  servitude.  Needless  to 
say,  no  one  holds  this  theory  who  has  any  capacity  for 
aesthetic  production  himself.  Nevertheless  it  is  widely 
held  by  people  who  are  interested  but  without  experience, 
and  as  these  people,  if  they  only  knew  it,  really  hold 
the  key  to  the  situation,  it  is  important  that  it  be  con- 
troverted. 

Let  us  suppose  then  that  the  people  were  liberated 
from  economic  servitude.     What  kind  of  work  would 


142    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM 

they  produce?  Well,  I  think  we  may  take  it  for  granted 
that  they  would  not  produce  shoddy  and  scamped  work ; 
but  I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  if  left  to  them- 
selves they  would  (so  far  as  the  aesthetic  side  of  their 
work  is  concerned)  continue  to  produce  very  much  the 
same  kind  of  thing  they  make  to-day,  and  this  for  the 
simple  reason  that  to  produce  anything  different  they 
would  need  to  be  born  again  aesthetically  and  spiritually. 
Economic  emancipation  would  not  of  itself  do  this  for 
them. 

Whatever  illusions  we  may  harbour  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  a  spontaneous  democratic  creation  of  art  are 
speedily  dissipated  when  we  talk  to  the  average  man ; 
we  have  not  to  talk  to  him  long  to  discover  that  he  rec- 
ognizes no  ultimate  standards  of  thought  or  taste.  One 
man  likes  this,  and  another  likes  that,  and  that  is  the 
end  of  it,  for  there  is  no  accounting  for  tastes.  The 
idea  that  he  cannot  get  hold  of  is  that  there  is  a  right 
and  wrong  in  questions  of  taste  as  in  other  matters,  and 
because  he  cannot  get  hold  of  it  he  must  remain  where 
he  is  or  follow  the  lead  of  others,  for  he  is  incapable 
of  leadership  himself.  And  if  the  individual  does  not 
thus  possess  within  himself  the  perception  that  would 
emancipate  him,  we  can  be  sure  the  masses  will  not,  for 
in  their  collective  capacity  the  tyranny  of  majorities 
tends  inevitably  to  maintain  the  status  quo.  Thus  we 
are  led  to  see  that  any  revival  of  art  does  not  depend 
upon  mass  action,  but  upon  individuals  whose  aesthetic 
perceptions  are  such  as  to  enable  them  to  lead  the  way — • 
that  is  by  the  gradual  enlargement  of  the  circle  of  people 
who  nowadays  have  some  idea  of  what  they  are  about. 
As  this  circle  widens,  art  becomes  democratic  because 
it  becomes  generalized  and  provides  a  medium  of  ex- 
pression in  which  all  may  share.     Thus  we  see  that  in 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM     143 

affirming  that  art  shall  be  democratic  we  do  not  mean 
that  we  look  forward  to  a  time  when  a  new  form  of 
aesthetic  expression  will  arise  spontaneously  out  of  the 
whims  and  fancies  of  undisciplined  tastes,  but  that  the 
nature  of  the  art  we  seek  to  promote  shall  be  such  as 
to  be  capable  of  popular  understanding  and  incorpora- 
tion. In  a  word,  it  is  a  conception  of  aesthetic  activity 
that  proceeds  to  the  people  seeking  their  regeneration, 
not  a  gospel  of  despair  demanding  that  the  uneducated 
shall  save  the  educated. 

Evidence  is  not  wanting  that  the  change  is  coming  in 
this  way.  We  speak  of  the  failure  of  the  Arts  and 
Crafts  Movement  and  in  the  sense  that  those  actively 
engaged  in  it  have  not  done  what  they  hoped  to  do,  it 
is  true.  Yet  it  has  not  entirely  failed.  The  improve- 
ment that  has  taken  place  in  the  democratic  arts  of 
house  furnishing  and  ladies'  dress  during  the  last  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  for  example,  amounts  to  a  revolution. 
Yet,  I  venture  to  say,  it  is  largely  the  consequence  of 
the  work  of  Morris  and  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Movement. 
This  movement  goes  on  underground,  unobserved  by  art 
critics.  True  it  has  a  long  way  to  go  yet.  Still  it  has 
got  a  good  start.  Twenty  years  ago  it  was  rare  to  find 
the  house  of  an  educated  person  furnished  with  any 
taste.  Nowadays  it  is  just  as  rare  to  go  into  one  that 
does  not  exhibit  some.  From  them  it  will  percolate  down 
until  all  are  affected,  once  the  economic  barriers  are 
removed. 

There  is  no  greater  illusion  in  this  world  than  to 
imagine  that  taste  cannot  be  taught.  Of  course  it  is 
impossible  to  teach  it  to  anyone  who  has  not  something 
within  himself  that  will  respond  to  the  suggestions  of  the 
teacher,  but  granted  that  something  is  there  (and  in  a 
greater  or  lesser  degree  most  people  have  some  inherent 


144    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  I:N'DUSTRIALISM 

aesthetic  sensibility),  then  taste  can  certainly  be  taught- 
It  will  develop  in  all  such  people  if  they  are  in  personal 
contact  with  others  in  whom  it  is  developed.  I  remember 
how  this  was  brought  home  to  me  some  twenty-five  years 
ago.  I  used  to  imagine  that  I  had  no  taste  in  colour, 
till  one  day  I  went  round  the  National  Gallery  with  a 
painter  who  gave  me  his  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of 
pictures  there.  He  told  me  that  this  was  good  colour 
and  that  was  bad ;  at  the  time  I  could  not  understand  the 
reasons  that  led  him  to  bestow  his  praise  and  blame.  I 
listened  to  what  he  had  to  say  and  said  little  myself, 
and  some  time  later  it  gradually  dawned  upon  me  what 
he  meant.  Afterwards  a  time  came  when  I  could  dis- 
criminate with  as  much  confidence  as  he  did. 

This  brings  me  to  what  is  a  very  crucial  issue.  The 
great  difficulty  connected  with  the  teaching  of  taste  is 
that  most  people  resent  criticism.  They  resent  the  dog- 
matism of  the  artist  as  something  which  if  admitted 
would  crush  them.  But  this  is  an  illusion,  for  if  they 
only  knew  it,  submission  to  such  dogmatism  would  liber- 
ate them.  To  learn  in  art,  as  in  other  things,  depends 
upon  a  certain  humility  of  temper  which  allows  a  man  to 
subordinate  himself  to  anyone  whom  he  feels  knows  more 
about  anything  than  himself.  If  he  will  do  this,  a  time 
comes  when  he  will  grow  out  of  his  pupilage  and  begin 
to  feel  his  own  feet.  But  too  few  will  be  content  to  act 
so,  their  pride  seems  to  stand  in  the  way.  They  want 
to  run  before  they  can  walk.  Yet  everything  depends 
upon  the  cultivation  of  such  a  temper.  Pride  is  as  great 
an  enemy  of  art  as  of  life. 

Such  considerations  enforce  the  conclusion  that  while 
a  solution  of  the  economic  problem  is  an  indispensable 
condition  of  the  triumph  of  art  in  the  world,  yet  its 
revival  is  not  ultimately  dependent  upon  a  solution  of 


THE  OBSTACLE  OF  INDUSTRIALISM     145 

such  difficulties,  but  upon  the  cultivation  of  a  certain 
temper  or  attitude  of  mind — a  temper  and  attitude  which 
may  be  described  as  Christian.  It  goes  with  a  certain 
respect  for  mastership  and  a  capacity  for  subordinating 
oneself  to  a  master,  while  it  is  frustrated  by  the  prevail- 
ing temper  of  self-assertion,  both  among  artist  whose 
pride  leads  tliem  to  desire  to  be  thought  original,  and  with 
the  man-in-the-street  who  "knows  what  he  likes"  and 
has  no  desire  to  learn.  The  truth  is  that  all  great  masters 
have  been  willing  learners,  while  their  dogmatism  does 
not  arise  from  egotism  and  pride,  but  from  the  self- 
confidence  that  follows  patient  study — the  knowledge 
that  they  understand  certain  things  and  their  desire  for 
others  to  share  in  tlieir  knowledge.  The  great  artist 
always  begins  by  subordinating  himself  to  the  needs  of 
a  communal  tradition  and  ends  by  transcending  it.  The 
minor  artist  will  not  submit  himself  to  such  a  discipline. 
He  suffers  from  an  anxiety  to  preserve  his  own  individu- 
ality and  therefore  fails  to  achieve  distinction  in  any- 
thing. He  that  would  save  his  life  must  lose  it,  is  a 
truth  for  the  artist  as  much  as  for  the  saint. 

I  said  that  a  great  artist  subordinates  himself  to  the 
needs  of  a  great  tradition,  as  such  his  spirit  is  democratic, 
for  the  true  democratic  spirit  does  not  seek  to  give  the 
public  merely  what  it  wants,  but  seeks  rather  to  subordi- 
nate itself  to  what  the  public  needs — two  very  different 
things.  In  tlie  world  of  to-day,  however,  there  is  no 
established  communal  tradition  of  art.  To  what  then 
does  he  subordinate  himself?  To  the  communal  tradi- 
tions of  the  past.  Not  in  any  dead  antiquarian  sense, 
but  as  a  source  of  living  inspiration;  for  to  those  living 
in  an  age  in  which  there  is  no  established  tradition  of  art, 
the  past  is  the  ultimate  source  of  inspiration.  Even  the 
modernist   schools   in   their   rebellion   against   academic 


146    THE  OBSTACLE  OF  IISTDUSTRIALISM 

standards  do  not  really  rebel  against  the  past,  but  against 
a  particular  interpretation  or  valuation  of  the  past,  for 
their  difference  from  the  academic  school  is  only  that  in 
their  search  for  a  source  of  inspiration  they  go  much 
farther  back.  The  academists  held  up  the  later  phase  of 
Greek  and  Gothic  art  as  models  to  be  followed,  the  mod- 
ernists on  the  contrary  take  the  more  primitive  forms  of 
Greek  and  Gothic  art  as  a  source  of  inspiration.  At  any 
rate  the  best  of  them  do.  Those  who  seek  to  cut  them- 
selves off  from  the  past  altogether  merely  become 
eccentric. 

Meanwhile  the  whole  trend  of  social  and  economic 
development  is  to  thrust  art  entirely  out  of  society.  What 
little  art  we  have  with  us  to-day  is  bound  up  with  the 
old  social  order  that  is  fast  disappearing — whether  it 
will  disappear  completely  remains  to  be  seen.  But  there 
is  no  doubt  whatsoever  that  it  is  being  crushed  out  of 
existence  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  plu- 
tocracy and  industrialism,  for  experience  proves  art  is 
incompatible  with  both  and  all  efforts  to  graft  art  on 
modern  civilization  can  only  fail  in  the  end.  Hence  the 
conviction  grows  that  the  only  hope  for  art  in  the  world 
is  to  get  back  to  its  old  basis  in  religion,  from  which  all 
the  great  traditions  of  art  in  the  past  have  derived.  It 
may  well  be  that  if  our  aspirations  were  fulfilled  and  a 
new  Christendom  should  return,  that  art  would  recover 
its  place  in  society  in  fuller  measure  and  more  complete 
perfection. 


THE    MORALIZATION    OF    PROPERTY 

BY 
MAURICE   B.   RECKITT,  M.A. 


148      THE  MORALIZATIO]^  OF  PROPERTY 


SYNOPSIS 

I 

The  Christian  claim  necessarily  involves  not  only  the  salvation 
of  the  individual,  but  the  resurrection  of  society.  The  failure  of 
Christians  themselves  to  realize  this  has  largely  accounted  for  the 
inefifectiveness  of  their  witness.  For  the  Faith  thus  never  appears 
to  the  world  in  the  light  of  a  unique  clue  to  its  problems. 

Yet  the  world  is  waiting  precisely  for  such  a  clue,  and  to  a  large 
extent  consciously  so.  It  realizes  its  need  of  social  salvation,  but 
many  of  its  best  spirits  have  despaired  of  the  most  fundamental 
institutions  of  society  in  view  of  the  seemingly  fatal  corruptions 
which  have  overtaken  them.  Especially  have  they  despaired  of  the 
institution  of  property. 

That  institution  is  still  defended  by  arguments  totally  inapplicable 
to  it  as  at  present  distorted  by  plutocracy.  But  plutocracy  cares 
nothing  for  property,  save  as  a  means  to  the  establishment  of  monop- 
oly, for  it  is  at  monopoly  essentially  which  plutocracy  aims.  There 
is  a  case  for  property,  however,  which  the  exposure  of  its  abuses 
to-day  can  only  strengthen. 

II 

The  ideal  of  Christendom  is  in  no  way  Utopian,  but  one  of  imme- 
diate and  practical  significance.  It  offers  in  particular  a  clue  to  the 
problem  of  Property  by  the  achievement  of  harmony  between  per- 
sonal freedom  and  social  function. 

While  a  clue,  however,  cannot  in  itself  resolve  all  difficulties,  it 
gives  us  ground  for  confidence  in  facing  them.  We  may  gain  assur- 
ance in  this  instance  that  property-holding  offers  opportunities 
which  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  vocation  of  the  average  Christian, 
while  the  obligations  of  fraternity  must  determine  the  conditions  in 
which  they  are  exercised. 

Property  has  been  distorted  by  private  monopoly  owing  to  the 
idea  that  liberty  being  a  purely  individual  right,  property  rights 
were  consequently  absolute,  neither  being  related  to  any  social 
purpose.  A  reaction  from  these  errors  leads  many  to  propose 
replacing  private  monopolies  by  public  ones — a  development  equally 
perilous  to  social  freedom. 

But  it  is  certain  that  no  solution  can  be  found  in  the  evolution 
of  plutocracy.    For  this  develops  property  rights  only  as  a  means  to 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      149 

power,  and  leads  to  the  domination  of  society  by  the  power  of  money, 
an  influence  totally  incompatible  with  brotherhood.  This  influence 
breeds  recklessness  both  in  the  wealthy  and  in  the  destitute,  while  it 
creates  in  the  middle  class  only  a  spiritless  timidity. 

Ill 

The  socialist  doctrine  has  a  superficial  cogency.  But  it  raises 
immediately  many  wide  questions  relating  to  property-holding  on 
which  Socialists  themselves  in  nowise  agree.  Two  main  schools  of 
thought,  however,  may  be  discerned. 

(a)  Communism  is  a  term  to  which  recent  events  have  given  an 
increased  practical  significance.  The  Russian  experiment  has  in- 
volved the  most  complete  attempt  to  extinguish  property-rights  ever 
made.  But  the  attempt  has  failed  because  it  made  provision  for  no 
alternative  inducements  to  replace  those  which  it  suppressed.  Its 
result  was  but  to  concentrate  all  the  tyrannies  of  irresponsible 
private  property  in  a  single  body. 

(b)  Collectivism,  though  its  adherents  are  critical  of  Communist 
methods,  embodies  a  programme  not  greatly  different  in  aim.  It 
professes  only  to  challenge  property  in  so  far  as  it  forms  part  of 
"the  means  of  production,  distribution,  and  exchange."  But  this 
is  a  very  wide  definition.  Before  we  can  accept  it,  we  have  to 
inquire  whether  its  application  may  not  involve  for  the  masses  the 
continued  deprivation  of  powers  and  opportunities  which  are  neces- 
sary to  a  full  citizenship. 

The  essence  of  ownership  does  not  lie  in  any  of  the  abuses  to 
which  it  is  subject,  but  in  the  assurance  of  security,  the  sense  of 
responsibility,  and  the  opportunity  of  choice.  Without  a  guaranteed 
economic  resource  independent  of  State  interference  for  every  citi- 
zen, public  monopoly  leaves  the  individual  at  the  mercy  of  the 
political   authorities. 

IV 

The  moralizatlon  of  property  involves  more  than  recognition  of 
their  obligations  on  the  part  of  the  holders  of  existing  property 
rights ;  it  involves  a  new  outlook  upon  the  sanctions  by  which  such 
rights  exist.  This  is  called  for,  not  only  in  principle  but  for  prac- 
tical reasons,  since  within  the  existing  system  a  new  status  for  the 
worker  and  a  new  orientation  of  industry  are  impossible. 

Nor  can  Christians  find  a  justification  for  the  possession  and 
administration  of  great  riches  by  taking  refuge  in  a  doctrine  of 
"stewardship,"  a  doctrine  which  contains  not  only  spiritual  falsehood 
but  an  economic  fallacy. 


150      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

Such  an  outlook  upon  property,  moreover,  finds  no  sanction  in 
the  Gospels.  Christ,  in  coming  "to  fulfill  the  Law  and  the  Prophets," 
endorsed  both  the  most  determined  attempt  to  achieve  the  moraliza- 
tion  of  property  ever  made  by  an  organized  connnunity  and  the 
protests  made  by  the  prophets  against  failures  to  preserve  it.  Further, 
in  His  central  doctrine  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  He  indicated  that 
only  in  a  community  of  fellowship  and  justice  can  material 
problems  be  solved. 

At  two  epochs  in  history  has  the  attitude  of  the  Church  to 
property  been  of  crucial  importance — in  the  fourth  century  and  in 
the  later  Middle  Ages.  The  first  of  these  two  supreme  opportunities 
was  largely  thrown  away,  and  a  lack  of  moral  initiative  on  the  part 
of  the  Church  left  "the  social  order  unadjusted  to  the  full  spirit  of 
the  Gospel." 

V 

Despite  the  first  great  failure  of  the  Church,  from  which  it  has 
never  wholly  recovered,  the  mediaeval  Church  did  make  a  noble 
effort  to  develop  a  body  of  teaching  which  should  cover  every 
aspect  of  man's  social  life.  It  involved  a  theory  of  property  which 
found  its  most  characteristic  exposition  in  the  teaching  of  Aquinas, 
who  refused  to  recognize  any  private  right  in  property,  and  defended 
private  property-holding  on  grounds  essentially  social.  Moreover, 
his  defence  had  relevance  only  to  a  social  order  in  which  a  share  in 
property  was  a  universal  experience,  as  was  generally  the  case  in 
the  Middle  Ages. 

Mediaeval  economic  teaching  was  employed  as  an  aid  to  the  main- 
tenance of  human  solidarity,  not  as  a  dis-solvent  of  it.  A  universal 
social  ethic  was  possible  because  of  the  acceptance  of  a  common 
Faith.  Personal  responsibility  was  enforced  not  as  a  merely  indi- 
vidual  obligation,  but   in   relation  to  a  comprehensive  social  ideal. 

It  is  only  with  reference  to  this  ideal  that  the  practical  exempli- 
fications of  medisevalism  can  be  understood.  These,  indeed,  display 
very  different  ideas  as  to  property  rights  from  those  now  prevalent. 
The  guild  system,  for  instance,  only  allowed  of  property  within  the 
governing  principles  of  Vocation  and  Fraternity,  as  is  shown  by  the 
institution  of  the  Just  Price  and  the  circumstances  of  the  worker's 
employment.  In  the  countryside  the  status  of  the  peasant  was  not 
a  proletarian  one,  but  rather  that  of  a  partner  in  an  agrarian 
co-operative  association. 

Mediaeval  thought  esteemed  industry,  commerce,  and  finance  in 
inverse  ratio  to  that  in  which  power  belongs  to  them  to-day.  The 
exaltation  of  Labour  led  to  the  perfection  of  craftmanship ;  avarice 
in  trading  was  condemned,  and  usury  as  a  means  of  livelihood 
denounced.    But  it  was  the  development  of  finance  which,  by  bewild- 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      151 

ering  and  confusing  mediaeval  teachers,  assisted  to  break  up  the 
moral  basis  of  the  mediaeval  economy.  The  use  of  money  as  "capi- 
tal" led  to  efforts  to  found  a  distinction  between  usury  and  justi- 
fiable interest.  Practical  sanction  for  the  latter  lay  in  the  increasing 
need  for  credit,  which  no  social  organization  could  adequately 
furnish.  The  problem,  which  proved  too  much  for  mediaeval  society, 
is  in  important  respects  similar  to  that  which  confronts  our  own. 

VI 

Mediaeval  conceptions  of  property  have  been  dealt  with  because 
they  illuminate  the  strength  and  the  limitations  of  the  Christendom 
ideal  so  far  as  it  was  grasped  by  the  Middle  Ages.  Criticisms  of 
mediaeval  social  achievements  are  often  beside  the  point  in  failing  to 
recognize  the  value  of  the  very  attempt  to  formulate  and  maintain 
a  moral  basis  for  economic  activities — such  an  attempt  being  an 
indispensable  prelude  to  the  attainment  of  justice  and  stability. 

A  similar  attempt  is  demanded  to-day,  and  the  Church  in  formu- 
lating it  would  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  world.  For  want  of  it 
men  are  confused,  and  many  among  the  "middle  classes"  cling  to 
property  (so  far  as  they  have  experience  of  it)  with  a  merely  in- 
stinctive and  indiscriminating  tenacity  which  plays  into  the  hands 
of  the  forces  of  plutocracy.  The  definition  of  property  is  stretched 
to  include  many  anti-social  prerogatives,  most  dangerous  amongst 
which  is  the  organized  avarice  of  financial  power,  which  holds 
sway  since  its  claims  and  assumptions  are  generally  accepted  with- 
out their  disasterous  effects  being  understood. 

Behind  the  problem  of  property  lies  the  problem  of  credit.  But 
whereas  real  credit  is  essentially  communal  and  based  upon  the 
ability  of  the  community  to  produce  what  it  needs,  the  issue  of 
credit  to-day  is  outside  any  sort  of  communal  control  and  based 
merely  on  financial  considerations.  The  issue  of  credit  is  equivalent 
to  the  issue  of  money,  and  those  who  control  it  are  in  command  of 
the  most  extreme  manifestation  of  property  rights  arising  from 
monopoly  which  plutocracy  displays.  The  inter-action  of  the  banks 
and  the  industrial  trusts  in  joint  control  of  credit-issue  and  price- 
fixing  is  the  means  whereby  the  community,  which  might  be  free  and 
prosperous,  is  impoverished  and  enslaved. 


VII 

The  implications  of  the  public  monopoly  of  all  economic  functions, 
as  plainly  stated  by  such  a  unique  authority  as  Lenin,  are  wholly 
incompatible   with    the   social   values   inherent    in   the    Christendom 


152      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

ideal.  Equally,  the  moralization  of  property  is  impossible  without 
the  repudiation  of  the  existing  economic  system. 

The  Christendom  ideal  requires  that  in  property  for  use  every 
citizen  should  have  a  share,  while  property  for  power  should  be 
transmuted  into  communal  functions  regulated  according  to  defined 
principles.  Credit-issue  and  price  regulation  being  withdrawn  from 
plutocracy  and  provided  for  by  communal  processes,  property  loses 
its  anti-social  potentialities. 

The  further  problem  arises  of  relating  the  right  of  the  individual 
to  a  share  in  the  common  inheritance  to  the  facts  of  social  produc- 
tion on  a  co-operative  basis.  This  problem  the  "Distributivist"  has 
tended  to  neglect.  A  clue  to  its  solution  lies  in  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  "the  dividend  is  the  logical  successor  of  the  wage."  The 
distinction  between  a  dividend  and  any  sort  of  "pay"  is  a  vital  one; 
and  the  dividend  has  no  necessary  relation  to  "production  for  profit." 
Immediate  steps  towards  the  attainment  by  the  individual  of  a 
share  in  the  communal  product  might  be  taken  by  the  establishment 
in  well  organized  industries  of  Credit  Banks  based  on  the  credit 
inherent  in  Labour's  ability  to  produce.  Such  banks  would  afford 
to  the  workers  concerned  the  opportunity  to  develop  an  encroaching 
economic  control  over  the  industry  involved,  ending  logically  in 
proprietorship,  but  not  including  price-fixing. 

Credit  Banks  would  further  provide  an  economic  basis  for  the 
revival  of  guild  organization.  Such  a  revival  is  indispensable  to 
industrial  self-government,  and  would  contribute  to  the  moralization 
of  property  by  giving  both  the  opportunity  and  the  motive  for  good 
craftsmanship.  The  economic  freedom  involved  in  a  share  both  in 
property  and  in  guild  organization  would  lead  men  to  glorify  God 
not  only  with  their  lips  but  by  their  acts,  and  translate  Christendom 
from  aspiration  into  reality. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      153 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 


The  Christian  who  declares  that  there  is  no  name  under 
heaven,  save  only  that  of  his  Master,  through  which  men 
may  find  their  rescue  and  their  hope,  their  vast  opportun- 
ities preserved  and  their  true  natures  fulfilled,  is  claiming 
something  more  far-reaching  than  he  is  himself  ready  in 
most  instances  to  appreciate.  He  is  preaching  not  only 
the  redemption  of  personality ;  he  is  pointing  to  the  resur- 
rection of  society.  The  two  are  as  inseparable  and  as 
interdependent  in  the  fully  comprehended  Christian  ideal 
as  they  would  reveal  themselves  to  be  in  the  completely 
realized  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.  Yet  the  failure 
of  the  Christian  witness  in  the  world  has  been  largely 
due  to  the  readiness  of  its  disciples  to  urge  their  fellow- 
men  to  "find  Christ"  without  any  effort  to  reveal  to  them 
that  thus  they  may  find  Christendom.  Christianity  so 
presented  affirms  indeed  the  soul  to  be  precious ;  yet  for 
all  that,  it  leaves  personality  frustrated  and  isolated.  It 
may  lead  men  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness, 
but  it  tempts  them  to  rest  content  with  a  purely  subjective 
realization  of  it.  Hence  the  impression  which  remains 
with  the  world  outside  that  Christians,  in  proclaiming 
"salvation,"  assert  nothing  but  the  possession  of  a  kind 
of  spiritual  patent-right,  the  privileges  of  which  they  are 
prepared  to  concede,  but  on  their  own  terms.    The  Faith 


154      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

thus  never  appears  as  a  clue  to  the  problems  which  be- 
wilder and  terrify  mankind,  but  merely  as  a  drug  by 
which  the  weak  may  hope  to  gain  some  degree  of  oblivion 
to  them. 

It  is  for  a  clue,  however,  that  the  world  is  waiting — 
a  world,  moreover,  more  ready  to-day  than  it  has  been 
for  many  decades  to  realize  how  literally  it  needs  to  be 
saved;  saved  from  the  fatal  consequences  to  which,  by 
its  worship  of  false  values,  it  now  finds  itself  irresistibly 
driven.  Pride,  avarice,  contempt  for  brotherhood  and 
freedom — these  things  have  distorted  the  institutions 
through  which  men  should  find  the  security,  the  happiness, 
and  the  wide  opportunities  to  afford  them  which  is  the 
very  purpose  of  society.  So  far,  indeed,  has  this  process 
gone,  that  these  institutions,  normal  to  mankind  in  some 
form  or  another  through  centuries  of  social  develop- 
ment, seem  now  diseased  beyond  recovery;  reformers 
despair  of  them,  and  resort  to  the  devising  of  ingenious 
contrivances  whereby  they  may  be  effectively  superceded. 
Dismayed  by  the  abuses  which  these  institutions  appear 
increasingly  to  display,  some  despair  of  marriage ;  some 
of  the  family;  others,  again,  of  the  national  grouping; 
a  few  even  despair  of  all  established  political  forms. 
Most  of  all  have  those  who  contend  for  social  change 
despaired  of  the  institution  of  property.  That  distortion 
of  its  nature  and  purpose  by  plutocracy,  to  which  brief 
reference  has  been  made  in  an  earlier  chapter,  has  for 
many  obscured  by  now  every  justification  of  it.  They 
are  impatient  of  any  plea  on  its  behalf.  It  is  for  them 
a  mere  abuse  of  power,  an  instrument  of  tyranny — let 
it  go  the  way  of  all  such. 

It  is  often  assumed  that  the  defense  of  an  institution 
will  include  a  defence  of  its  abuses :  more  commonly, 
however,  it  will  rather  involve  the  exposure  of  them. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      155 

The  defence  of  contemporary  property  rights  en  bloc 
and  without  qualification  can  be  most  successfully  at- 
tempted by  a  refusal  to  discuss  them,  or — so  far  as  pos- 
sible— to  allow  others  to  discuss  them.  That  whatever 
is  property  to-day  is  rightly  so,  can  only  be  affirmed  by 
the  unscrupulous  or  by  the  foolish.  All  we  need  require 
of  such  a  defence  is  that  it  should  be  compelled  to  begin. 
Once  opened,  it  provides  the  replies  to  its  own  contentions 
with  automatic  efficiency.  Private  property  must  be  pre- 
served as  the  guarantee  of  energy  and  initiative.  Is  our 
proletariat  then  to  be  criticized  for  displaying  a  deficiency 
of  either ;  and  can  we  look  to  that' one-eighth  of  our  popu- 
lation which  now  enjoys  to  the  full  the  experience  of 
property-holding  to  supply  the  community  with  all  it 
needs  of  work  and  enterprise?  Property  is  the  just 
reward  of  saving.  Then  how  chances  it  that  the  easy 
prodigality  of  Bond  Street  does  not  compel  its  patrons 
to  change  stations  with  those  constrained  to  a  relentless 
thrift  in  the  Commercial  Road?  Property  is  necessary 
to  individual  liberty.  How  then  can  the  Home  of  Free- 
dom still  fail  to  facilitate  its  distribution  to  forty  million 
of  her  citizens?  It  is  through  the  operation  of  private 
property  that  society  will  best  be  served.  Yet  in  regard 
to  a  number  of  commodities  of  capital  importance  a 
Government  Committee  assures  us  that  a  ring  of  property 
holders  "are  in  a  position  to  control  output  and  prices" — 
and  society  by  means  thereof. 

The  fallacies  embodied  in  such  a  line  of  argument 
do  not  stand  in  much  need  of  exposure,  they  are  too 
glaring  to  be  hid ;  but  they  do  require  to  be  exactly  under- 
stood. There  is  a  case  for  the  preservation  of  property, 
but  plutocracy  can  never  urge  it;  for  plutocracy  cares 
nothing  for  property,  save  as  a  means  to  the  establish- 
ment of  monopoly.     It  is  upon  the  achievement  of  some 


156      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

form  of  monopoly  that  its  most  significant  energies  are 
concentrated.  And  whatever  the  case  for  extending  the 
opportunities  of  estabHshing  monopoly  rights  in  private 
hands  and  fortifying  the  position  of  those  who  have 
acquired  them,  it  bears  no  resemblance  to  the  familiar 
defence  of  property.  Monopoly,  once  achieved,  offers 
no  prospect  of  enterprise  and  initiative :  it  renders  them 
superfluous.  Monopoly  is  not  the  reward  of  saving;  it 
is  the  result  of  power,  accident,  or  double-dealing — 
often  of  all  three.  Monopoly  does  not  extend  personal 
liberty:  it  assists  still  further  to  extinguish  it.  If  it 
operates  to  serve  society,  it  does  so  capriciously  and  pre- 
cariously ;  more  often  it  merely  exploits  the  public  strug- 
gling in  its  relentless  grip,  and  subjugates  the  very  mind 
and  spirit  of  men,  enforcing  upon  them  its  sordid 
standards  and  its  cruel  codes. 

II 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  make  plain  that  the 
ideal  of  Christendom  is  neither  a  mediaeval  Utopia  nor 
merely  an  inspiring  "spiritual  myth,"  but  a  vital  con- 
ception of  the  most  immediate  and  practical  significance. 
It  offers  the  clue,  and  the  only  complete  one,  for  want 
of  which  society  lies  in  bondage  to  confusion  and  despair. 
And  this  is  true  in  particular  of  the  problem  of  property. 
The  Christendom  ideal  points  to  that  perfect  harmony 
between  personal  freedom  and  social  function  in  which 
property  becomes  as  much  an  organ  of  society  as  it  does 
an  expression  of  personality.  For  "a  society  in  which 
the  free  activities  of  men  are  gathered  together  to  create 
a  social  order  which  can  be  offered  as  a  gift  to  the 
glory  of  God"  cannot  depend  either  upon  subjective 
rights  of  property-holding  irresponsibly  exercised,  nor 
upon  objective  functions  categorically  imposed.    Prop- 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      157 

erty  would  exist  in  such  a  society  to  enable  man  to 
enjoy  that  independence  which  is  a  condition  of  his  con- 
tribution to  the  common  purpose  being  rightly  made: 
a  divine  motive  would  be  ever  present  to  reveal  that 
common  purpose  to  every  man,  so  that  he  would  realize 
more  fully  than  purely  mundane  considerations  will  ever 
enable  him  to  do,  that  fellowship  is  life  and  lack  of 
fellowship  is  death. 

Personal  freedom  and  social  function — these  are  the 
pillars  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  all  social  institutions 
must  be  built  round  them.  To  say  that  we  have  here 
the  clue  to  the  problem  of  property  is  not  to  say  that  we 
are  enabled  thereby  to  resolve  all  its  difficulties.  We 
shall  have  to  pick  our  way  patiently  through  many  of 
them  in  the  course  of  this  chapter,  and  many  more  lie 
outside  its  scope.  But  an  attempt  can  be  made  in  the 
light  of  the  Christendom  ideal  to  establish  the  conten- 
tion that  on  the  one  hand  the  opportunities  involved  in 
true  property-holding  are  a  valid  part  of  the  vocation 
of  every  citizen  who  does  not  choose  voluntarily  to  abjure 
them;  while  on  the  other  the  preeminent  obligations  of 
fraternity  must  determine  the  conditions  in  which  those 
opportunities  are  exercised.  Property,  in  short,  is  a  part 
of  freedom ;  but  while  it  must  not  evaporate  into  Collec- 
tivism, it  equally  must  not  degenerate  into  private 
monopoly. 

We  have  seen  already  how  this  latter  degeneration 
has  ended  by  distorting  the  very  nature  of  property,  as 
it  began  by  distorting  its  purpose.  The  origin  of  this 
evil  process  is  not  obscure.  Property  began  to  be  con- 
ceived of  as  having  rights  unlimited  and  absolute  when, 
with  the  break-up  of  the  mediaeval  order  in  face  of  the 
corruptions  of  authority,  liberty  began  to  be  thought  of 
not  as  an  attribute  of  citizenship,  but  rather  as  a  right 


158      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

purely  individual.  Loss  of  the  idea  of  a  social  purpose — 
such  as  the  Christendom  ideal  so  uniquely  supplies  and 
illuminates — obscures  the  social  and  relative  natures  of 
both  liberty  and  property.  In  the  reaction  against  the 
results  of  this  error,  men  tend  to  conclude  that  liberty 
and  property  are  things  of  which  the  average  person 
cannot  be  trusted  to  make  a  good  use;  the  State  must 
take  charge  of  them  and  "ration"  them  discreetly.  Priv- 
ate property  allied  to  unrestricted  individualism  having 
issued  in  private  monopoly,  the  reformer  sees  no  alter- 
native but  the  establishment  of  a  public  monopoly  in  the 
economic  resources  of  society.  It  is  a  desperate  remedy, 
for  it  delivers  the  community  into  the  hands  of  its  poli- 
ticians and  magistrates ;  and  freedom  finds  new  bureau- 
crat but  old  capitalist  writ  large. 

But  before  we  turn  to  consider  the  validity  of  the 
socialist  attitude  to  property  as  it  is  ordinarily  under- 
stood, it  is  necessary  to  dispute  finally  and  without  any 
reservation  the  possibility  of  any  solution  for  the  prob- 
lem of  property  being  discoverable  along  the  lines  of 
the  plutocratic  evolution  of  to-day.  For  the  prime  char- 
acteristic of  modern  property  rights  is  that  they  carry 
with  them  power  over  the  lives  of  others  and  the  destinies 
of  society  in  general. 

The  capitalist,  in  virtue  of  his  industrial  power,  con- 
trols the  working  condition  of  thousands  of  wage-slaves ; 
the  financier,  by  the  exercise  of  a  power  more  subtle  but 
more  absolute,  determines  the  very  nature  of  production 
by  his  monopoly  of  credit,  and  subjugates  employer  and 
consumer  alike.  The  concentration  of  property  means 
the  domination  of  society  by  the  power  of  money,  an 
influence  entirely  illegitimate  in  any  true  community.  Its 
effect  is  inevitably  disruptive,  uneconomic,  and  capricious. 
No  brotherhood  could  survive  the  concession  of  increased 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      159 

power  and  influence  to  any  of  its  members  on  the  ground 
of  material  possessions,  and  no  society  can  approximate 
to  a  brotherhood  while  it  still  does  so.  Yet  who  will  be 
found  to  deny  that  the  influence  of  money-power  is  the 
prime  feature  of  our  civilization?  The  results  are  glar- 
ing and  all  perceive  them :  to  say  that  they  are  anti-social 
is  a  statement  of  the  case  not  only  moderate,  but  one 
which  has  the  further  merit  of  being  exactly  accurate. 
A  prodigal  recklessness  in  the  opulent  few  is  matched  by 
a  desperate  recklessness  in  the  destitute  many;  while 
between  them  sways  an  incoherent  mass  who  cling  to 
"property,"  so  far  as  they  have  any  experience  of  it, 
with  an  uninquiring  timidity,  content  that  the  few  should 
control  the  land  if  they  be  but  allowed  to  cling  to  the 
rocks  of  the  island  of  plutocracy.  If  the  moralization 
of  property  is  to  be  begun,  we  must  banish  the  wretched 
contemporary  caricature  of  it  from  our  minds,  and  re- 
deem the  institution  from  its  degradation  before  a  new 
tyranny  rises  up  to  revenge  itself  upon  the  old. 

Ill 

Property  rights  in  private  hands  have  become  the 
means  to  the  exercise  of  power  over  those  deprived  of 
them  and  a  stimulus  to  anti-social  greed :  let  the  com- 
munity extinguish  those  rights  by  possessing  itself  of 
them,  and  these  devastating  evils  will  disappear.  Such 
has  been  the  basic  doctrine  of  the  Socialists.  Its  super- 
ficial cogency  may  be  admitted,  but  its  enunciation  must 
needs  be  (as  it  has  in  fact  been),  but  the  prelude  to  an 
exhaustive  discussion  of  the  limits  of  its  applicability; 
the  kinds  of  property  requiring  such  treatment  and  sus- 
ceptible of  it;  the  nature  of  the  social  organization  to 
which  it  can  be  safely  entrusted ;  the  stages  through  which 


160      THE  MORALIZATIOIsr  OF  PROPERTY 

such  a  development  ought  to  or  may  require  to  pass. 
How  little  Socialists  themselves  have  agreed  about  these 
things  is  generally  known,  and  every  fresh  endeavour 
to  explore  such  problems  only  accentuates  this  complex- 
ity- But  two  main  schools  may  be  discerned,  though 
the  practical  differences  between  them  are  perhaps  fewer 
than  their  disciples  realize. 

To  consider  first  the  implications  of  Communism.  The 
word  was  for  long  an  essentially  academic  one;  and 
many  an  Anarchist-Communist  indulged  in  his  dream 
of  the  common  use  at  individual  discretion  of  goods  and 
services  which  it  was  nobody's  particular  obligation  to 
provide,  without  gaining  more  attention  than  proposals 
of  so  little  relevance  to  circumstances  ordinarily  re- 
ceived.^ A  few  critics  stayed  to  point  out  that  not  only 
did  such  a  conception  involve  a  degree  of  enlightened 
individualism  impossible  to  attain  in  any  community  for- 
tuitously composed,  but  that  such  an  amorphous  society 
could  never  exhibit  the  vitality,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
efficiency,  of  one  in  which  the  positive  value  of  social 
institutions  which  corresponded  to  essential  functions  was 
realized  and  exemplified.  But  the  Russian  revolution 
and  its  international  reverberations  have  swept  this  ver- 
sion of  Communism  into  oblivion,  and  recalled  to  us  that 
the  authentic  origins  of  the  term  must  be  looked  for  in 
a  Manifesto  of  1847  ^^^  ^^  uprising  of  1871.  We  have 
said  something  in  an  earlier  chapter  of  the  Communist 
experiment  to-day,  and  its  relation  to  our  ideal.  In  re- 
gard to  property,  it  can  certainly  be  said  that  the  Soviet 
Republic  has  made  a  more  complete  and  ruthless  attempt 

^  Not  every  exponent  of  Anarchist-Communism  was  so  light- 
heartedly  unsystematic  as  this  of  course.  Some  of  the  contemporary 
Guild  Socialists  would  claim  Kropotkin  as  a  forerunner  of  their 
ideals  and  even  of  their  proposals. 


THE  MORALIZATTOX  OF  PROPERTY      IGl 

to  entrench  upon  the  rights  of  private  ownership  and 
individual  discretion  than  has  ever  been  made  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  attempt  has  been  made  and 
it  has  failed,  and  the  policy  is  already  in  many  important 
respects  being  abandoned.  It  has  failed  because  initiative 
being  destroyed,  and  liberty,  individual  and  corporate, 
existing  only  on  sufferance,  no  inducement  could  arise 
to  replace  the  sordid  motives  on  which  capitalism  has 
relied.  Peasants,  whose  livelihood  had  depended  on  the 
wise  development  of  their  property,  found  themselves 
harrassed  and  menaced  by  a  bungling  bureaucracy,  until 
they  lost  all  motive  to  produce  for  more  than  their  own 
immediate  needs.  Industrial  workers  found  themselves  as 
much  divorced  as  before  from  control  over  the  property 
on  which  they  worked  and  still  largely  subject  to  an  ex- 
ternal dictatorship  in  matters  of  labour  discipline.  Com- 
munism, in  the  name  of  the  public  interest,  has  concen- 
trated all  the  tyrannies  of  irresponsible  private  property 
in  itself,  destroying  the  capitalist,  and  making  the  fin- 
ancier obsolete,  but  only  by  "shifting  the  credit  basis 
from  the  bank-note  to  the  machine  gun."^ 

Russian  Communism  has  certainly  demonstrated  that 
the  public  absorption  of  property  can  render  rich  men 
poor,  but  the  more  crucial  problem  of  making  poor  men 
richer  has  not  been  solved  thereby,  nor  will  it  ever  be 
if  by  "richer"  we  mean,  as  we  should,  richer  in  freedom 
and  richer  in  opportunity  as  well  as  in  material  posses- 
sions. The  Socialist  of  the  Collectivist  type  is  ready 
enough  to  criticize  Communist  methods,  but  his  pro- 
gramme is  not  greatly  different  in  aim ;  though  he  has 
often  been  able  to  appreciate  that  the  indiscriminate  pro- 

'^  Credit-Power  and  Democracy,  by  C.  H.  Douglas,  p.  63.  The 
economic  implications  of  the  Bolshevik  policy  are  very  well  brought 
out  in  Chapters  V.  and  VI.  of  this  remarkable  book. 


162      THE  MORALIZATIOK  OF  PROPERTY 

vision  of  communal  services  at  the  public  expense  is 
rather  a  limitation  of  freedom  than  an  expansion  of  it, 
since  ultimately  it  dictates  the  nature  of  the  individual's 
expenditure,  instead  of  leaving  this  a  matter  of  personal 
choice.  Moreover,  the  Socialist  is  generally  at  pains  to 
make  clear  that  he  has  no  desire  to  interfere  with  rights 
over  private  property  save  in  so  far  as  these  are  a  part 
of  "the  means  of  production,  distribution  and  exchange." 
The  definition  is  a  wide  one,  and  the  questions  it  raises 
are  not  simple.  One  question  above  all  is  of  capital  im- 
portance, and  has  never  been  more  engagingly  stated 
than  it  was  twenty  years  ago  in  a  characteristic  hyper- 
bole by  one  of  the  very  few  critics  of  Socialism  who  have 
exhibited  both  a  passion  for  democracy  and  a  sense  of 
humour. 

*T  have  a  number  of  friends  who  agree  with  me  in 
thinking  this,  that  art  should  not  be  competitive  or  in- 
dustrial, but  most  of  them  go  on  to  the  very  strange 
conclusion  that  one  should  not  own  one's  garden,  nor 
one's  beehive,  nor  one's  great,  noble  house,  nor  one's 
pigsty,  nor  one's  railway  shares,  nor  the  very  boots  on 
one's  feet.  I  say,  out  upon  such  nonsense !  Then  they 
say  to  me,  what  about  the  concentration  of  the  means  of 
production?  And  I  say  to  them,  what  about  the  distri- 
bution of  the  ownership  of  the  concentrated  means  of 
production?  And  they  shake  their  heads  sadly,  and  say 
it  would  never  endure;  and  I  say,  try  it  first  and  see. 
Then  they  fly  into  a  rage."^ 

Before  we  accept  the  claim  of  central  authority  to 
entrench  itself,  in  the  name  of  a  formula,  upon  the 
sphere  of  ownership,  let  us  be  clear  to  ourselves  what  is 
the  essence  of  ownership  and  of  how  much  is  the  citizen 
deprived  who  has  no  experience  of  it.    The  true  meaning 

'H.  Belloc,  The  Path  to  Rome,  p.   111. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      163 

of  ownership  does  not  lie  in  any  abuses  of  power  or 
gain  to  which  it  is  subject,  but  in  the  assurance  of  secur- 
ity, the  sense  of  responsibility,  the  opportunity  for  self- 
direction,  freedom  of  choice  and  some  form  of  arranging 
one's  own  life  in  advance.  The  effect  of  the  absence  of 
such  powers  the  following  passage  will  suggest: 

"The  vast  mass  of  workers  in  our  towns  have  long 
ago  ceased  to  have  any  right  of  possession  over  the  tools 
or  materials  of  their  occupation ;  ,  .  .  they  have  no 
secure-footing  of  their  own,  no  self-dependent  area  on 
which  to  fall  back,  no  reserved  resources  which  are 
under  their  own  control  and  direction.  Their  existence 
is  never  in  their  own  hands ;  nor  are  they  responsible 
for  their  own  maintenance.  The  stability,  the  power 
to  look  before  and  after,  the  assured  hold  on  reality,  the 
embodiment  of  their  wills  in  a  material  fact,  which  we 
philosophically  recognize  to  be  the  moral  and  spiritual 
value  of  private  ownership — all  this  is  denied  to  them. 
They  enjoy  no  sense  of  background  such  as  would  endow 
their  individual  lives  with  a  certain  dignity.  They  exist 
on  the  surface;  they  cannot  strike  roots  and  establish 
permanency.  ...  It  is  just  the  moral  discipline  of 
responsible  ownership  which  they  are  bound  to  lack."^ 

It  is  clear  that  these  attributes  of  liberty  and  citizen- 
ship must  be  restored  to  the  masses  in  a  free  society :  it 
is  not  clear  that  a  purely  public  ownership  either  would 
or  could  restore  them.  Just  as  State  service  without 
guild  control  cannot  afford  men  freedom  in  the  industrial 
sphere,  so  State  monopoly  without  some  guaranteed  share 
in  the  social  inheritance  for  every  individual  cannot  pro- 
vide them  security  in  the  economic  one.  Not  the  prohibi- 
tion of  property  rights  but  their  moralization  is  what  we 

'Canon  Scott  Holland  in  the  volume  of  essays  entitled  Property: 

its  Ditties  and  Rights. 


164      THE  MORALIZATIOlSr  OF  PROPERTY 

have  to  aim  at  if  we  are  not  to  put  the  individual  at  the 
mercy  of  the  political  authorities.  We  have  to  see  what 
light  Christian  tradition  may  throw  on  such  a  process, 
and  what  practical  developments  it  may  involve  for 
society  to-day. 

IV 

It  will  be  clear  from  the  standpoint  already  elaborated 
in  this  chapter  that  the  moralization  of  property  cannot 
be  brought  about  merely  by  a  discreet  and  benevolent 
exercise  on  the  part  of  existing  property  owners  of 
rights  now  legally  belonging  to  them,  irrespective  of  the 
nature  of  such  property  or  the  present  distribution  of  it. 
The  moralization  of  property-holding  involves  a  new 
outlook,  not  merely  upon  the  obligations  of  it,  but  upon 
the  sanctions  which  give  it  a  title  to  exist.  Anything  less 
than  this  is  not  only  utterly  inadequate  in  principle,  but 
it  is  very  largely  ineffective  in  practice.  It  has  often  been 
urged,  for  instance,  that  the  claims  of  the  worker  to  a 
"full  life"  must  be  the  first  change  upon  the  industry  in 
which  he  is  engaged ;  and  a  body  of  shareholders  have 
even  combined  in  a  public  statement  to  declare  their  con- 
viction "that  the  claims  of  the  workers  to  wages  making 
it  possible  for  them  to  live  a  full  and  free  life  come  before 
the  claims  of  shareholders  to  dividends" ;  and  that  they 
"are  prepared  to  accept  whatever  personal  loss  shall 
arise"  through  the  reorganization  involved  to  produce 
such  a  result.  The  declaration  was  by  no  means  with- 
out value  in  some  respects,  but  it  could  have  no  practical 
bearing  on  the  present  organization  of  industry,  since 
that  organization  is  from  beginning  to  end  devised  to 
produce  money  values,  and  money  values  only,  and 
would  immediately  become  ineffective  if  efforts  were 
made  to  adopt  it  to  humaner  purposes  without  radical 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      165 

change.  The  purposes  of  industrial  activity  to-day  are 
ultimately  determined  by  finance,  and  while  the  com- 
munity allows  the  functions  which  finance  so  inadequately 
performs  to  be  exercised  by  private  corporations  for 
their  own  enrichment,  the  emancipation  of  industry  and 
the  moralization  of  property  will  remain  equally  un- 
realizable. 

Yet  another  theory,  and  a  very  dangerous  one,  is  often 
advanced  among  Christians  as  providing  a  sufficient  justi- 
fication of  property  rights  in  their  present  form,  or  some- 
thing not  widely  different  from  it.  This  is  the  doctrine 
of  "stewardship."  It  is  contended  that  great  riches,  so 
far  from  being  regarded  as  the  fruit  of  avarice,  the  seed 
of  tyranny,  and  the  means  of  luxury,  ought  to  be  looked 
upon  as  affording  a  unique  opportunity  for  the  exercise 
of  benevolence  and  charity.  The  argument  is  not  gen- 
erally stated  so  plainly,  but  in  a  confused  sort  of  way 
it  has  been  employed  to  add  a  welcomed  sanction  to 
the  "deceitfulness  of  riches.''  It  is  necessary  to  observe 
that  this  comfortable  theory  contains  not  only  a  spiritual 
falsehood,  but  an  economic  fallacy,  for  such  a  "steward- 
ship" is  outside  the  ability  of  any  individual  to  execute. 
The  ability  to  lay  out  money  wisely  is,  like  other  human 
capacities,  strictly  limited ;  and  luxury  expenditure,  in 
which  form  "benevolence"  so  often  clothes  itself,  is 
normally  a  process  so  uneconomic  as  to  be  anti-social. 
The  administration  of  wealth  is  not  a  "stewardship," 
it  is  a  dictatorship;  since  riches  involve  a  power  over 
others,  degrading  alike  to  those  who  are  possessed  of  it 
and  to  those  who  are  its  passive  dependents.^ 

*  I  do  not  wish  to  be  taken  as  denying  the  personal  responsibility 
of  the  individual  Christian  in  regard  to  the  investment  and  expen- 
diture of  the  wealth  of  which  he  finds  himself  in  charge  under  our 
prevailing  social  arrangements.    I  seek  only  to  deny  that  the  exercise 


166      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

It  is  recorded  of  a  brilliant  leader  of  fashionable 
society  to-day,  that  on  someone  remarking  in  her  hearing, 
"After  all,  you  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon,"  she 
interposed  with  the  characteristic  comment,  '7  can!" 
It  is  a  wide-spread,  if  largely  a  secret  conviction.  Men 
feel  that  the  perils  of  wealth,  however  subtle  and  uni- 
versal, can  somehow  be  circumvented  in  their  own 
particular  case.  It  is  an  impression,  however,  for  which 
no  grounds  are  to  be  discovered  in  the  Gospels;  and 
Christ,  who  "came  to  fulfil  the  Law  and  the  Prophets," 
endorsed  in  doing  so  the  most  resolute  and  elaborate 
attempt  to  achieve  the  moralization  of  property  that  has 
ever,  perhaps,  been  made  by  an  organized  community.^ 
Read,  as  it  should  be,  in  the  light  of  the  Mosaic  code 
as  a  whole,  the  Eighth  Commandment,  says  Dr.  Bartlett, 
"tells  against  all  accumulation  of  land  and  wealth  as 
'private  Property'  which  affects  inequitably  and  op- 
pressively the  opportunities  and  welfare  of  men  and 
women,  as  God's  own  special  property."  The 
prophets  arose  to  testify  to  the  apostasy  involved  in 
social  injustice  and  to  develop  and  uplift  that  ideal  of 
the  Kingdom  which  Christ  Himself,  as  the  greatest  of 
them,  made,  as  has  been  already  demonstrated,^  the 
very  essence  of  His  teaching.  In  the  demand  that  His 
followers  should  "seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and 
His  righteousness"  so  that  thereby  all  other  things 
should  be  added  unto  them.  He  was  uttering  no  recom- 
mendation to  a  mere  idle  personal  piety  sustained  by  the 
of  that  responsibility,  however  admirably  fulfilled,  can  ever  be  a 
sufficient  substitute  for  complete  social  reorganization,  even  though 
every  individual  Christian  strove  his  utmost  to  be  worthy  of  his 
opportunities. 

^  See  the  essay  by  Dr.  Vernon  Bartlett  in  Property:  its  Duties 
and  Rights. 

*  See  above,  Chapter  IV. 


THE  MORALIZATIOIS^  OF  PROPERTY      167 

work  of  others,  but  a  declaration  that  only  in  a  com- 
munity of  fellowship  and  justice  can  men  hope  to  find 
their  material  problems  solved. 

It  is  not  possible  within  the  limits  of  this  chapter,  nor 
is  it  necessary,  to  trace  the  developments  through  which 
Christian  doctrines  as  to  property  rights  have  passed 
nor  the  causes  which  have  influenced  them.  At  two 
epochs  of  history,  however,  does  the  attitude  of  the 
Church  seem  to  have  been  of  crucial  importance — the 
moment  when  she  first  found  the  forces  of  government 
no  longer  in  bitter  hostility,  but  offering  an  official  alli- 
ance, and  the  period  during  which  her  teaching  had  its 
completest  influence  over  the  newly-developed  civiliza- 
tion of  Christian  Europe.  The  first  of  these  two  supreme 
opportunities  found  the  Church  spiritually  unprepared 
and  morally  unequal  to  her  mission  of  "over-coming 
the  world."  For  whatever  reasons — and  it  is  not  difficult 
to  discern  them  ^ — the  Faith  had  lost  that  aggressive 
quality,  that  power  of  moral  initiative  which  could  alone 
have  built  a  new  and  noble  civilization  out  of  the 
crumbling  ruins  of  the  Roman  world.  "The  social 
order  remaining  at  this  crucial  point  unadjusted  to  the 
full  spirit  of  the  Gospel  of  Divine  Fatherhood  and  Hu- 
man Brotherhood,  came  to  react  adversely  on  Christian 
ideals  of  property  generally.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
idea  of  property  as  a  social  and  economic  institution 
really  remained  pagan  and,  so  far  as  embodied  in  law, 
Roman  in  its  spirit  and  presuppositions.  .  .  .  Civic  and 
economic  life  was  in  principle  left  to  go  its  own  way 
according  to  its  own  secular  and  selfish  laws,  as  a  system 
outside  the  redemptive  control  of  Christian  motives  and 
methods."  ^ 

'See   Dr.    Bartlett's    above-mentioned    essay,    pp.    108-116. 
'Property:  its  Duties  and  Rights,  pp.  113,  115. 


168      THE  M0RALI2ATI0N  OF  PROPERTY 

V 

iFrom  this  failure  to  rise  to  the  height  of  her  mission 
the  Church  has  never  wholly  recovered.  The  moment 
when  she  will  finally  realize  and  fulfil  it  is  still  in  front 
of  her. 

Nevertheless,  the  attempt  made  by  the  mediaeval 
Church  to  develop  a  body  of  teaching  which  should 
cover  every  aspect  of  man's  social  life  was,  for  all  its 
defects,  a  very  noble  one,  and  the  ideal  of  Christendom 
was  prefigured,  even  if  it  was  not  exemplified,  in  it.  The 
theory  of  property  which  formed  the  basis  of  mediaeval 
economics  had  been  evolved  through  long  centuries  of 
Christian  thought  upon  the  subject,  and  it  found  its 
most  characteristic  and  elaborate  exposition  in  the 
writings  of  Aquinas.  The  sanctions  for  private 
property-holding  according  to  this  theory  were  essentially 
social,  and  Aquinas  refused  to  recognize  any  private 
right  in  property,  since  a  man  must  hold  those  things 
which  are  his  as  for  the  common  use  and  must  minister 
of  what  he  has  to  the  necessities  of  others.  Aquinas 
found  a  justification  for  private  property  in  three  consid- 
erations, all  of  which  contributed  to  the  common  interest : 
it  provided  an  incentive  to  energy ;  it  facilitated  the  better 
ordering  of  human  affairs  by  affording  to  each  his  partic- 
ular function  in  the  task  of  procuring  goods  for  the 
community;  and  it  provided  a  basis  for  social  peace  and 
order  by  giving  to  each  his  particular  share  to  look 
after.  Whatever  the  validity  of  this  particular  vindica- 
tion of  private  property,  it  is  clear  that  it  can  only  have 
any  force — or,  indeed,  any  meaning  at  all — in  reference 
to  a  social  order  in  which  a  share  in  property  and  its  op- 
portunities was  a  matter  of  universal  experience.  And 
despite  much  that  was  inequitable  and  tyrannical  in  the 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      169 

social  conditions  of  the  time,  such  experience  was  in- 
finitely more  universal  than  it  is  to-day. 

Mediaeval  economic  teaching,  moreover,  is  of  great 
importance  in  that  it  was  employed  as  an  end  to  the 
maintenance  of  human  solidarity,  and  not — as  it  has 
commonly  been  in  modern  times — as  an  apologia  for  the 
destruction  of  it.  The  distinction  is  fundamental,  and 
the  cause  of  it  not  less  so.  It  has  been  explained  by  a 
modern  authority  in  tlie  statement  that  "the  application  of 
ethics  to  economic  transactions  was  rendered  possible  by 
the  existence  of  one  universally  recognized  code  of 
morality  and  the  presence  of  one  universally  accepted 
moral  Teacher."  ^  In  short,  the  ideal  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man  followed  upon  a  recognition  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  authority  of  Christ.  The  Church  in  the 
Middle  Ages  certainly  enforced  far  more  clearly  than  it 
has  ever  done  since  the  personal  responsibility  of  each 
of  its  members  in  matters  of  social  righteousness ;  yet  it 
did  so  in  relation  to  a  social  ideal — the  mediaeval  con- 
ception of  Christendom — more  comprehensive  and  more 
completely  adequate  than  any  political  theory  or  eco- 
nomic doctrine  has  in  later  ages  been  able  to  provide. 

Save  in  the  light  of  this  ideal  it  is  impossible  to 
perceive  the  real  nature  and  significance  of  such  practical 
exemplifications  of  medisevalism  as  the  guilds.  Indeed, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  the  historical  significance  of  eco- 
nomic theory  can  be  rightly  appreciated  unless  the 
further  factor  of  the  "corporate  mind"  expressing  itself 
in  public  opinion  and  the  social  action  following  upon 
it  is  taken  into  account.  It  is  evident  that  a  society  which 
visited  "forestallers"  and  "regraters"  with  humiliat- 
ing— and  even  savage — punishments,  and  which  ex- 
ercised a  rigid  corporate  control  over  price-fixing  and  the 

*  Dr.  George  O'Brien  in  An  Essay  on  Mediceval  Economic  Teaching. 


170      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

whole  sphere  of  industrial  production,  had  very  different 
ideas  about  the  rights  of  property  from  those  in  ascend- 
ancy to-day.  The  guild  system,  for  instance,  was  based 
on  private  ownership,  but  it  allowed  of  property  only 
within  the  governing  principles  of  Vocation  and 
Fraternity.  Prices — the  weapon  of  the  profiteer — could 
not  be  fixed  at  individual  discretion,  but  had  to  be  cor- 
porately  determined  according  to  the  principle  of  the 
"Justum  Pretium,"  which  operated  not  merely  to 
protect  the  consumer  in  the  maintenance  of  a  standard 
of  quality  but  also  to  safeguard  the  worker's  standard  of 
life.  Property,  moreover,  did  not  ordinarily  give  the 
individual  employer  the  right  to  hire  workers  on  his  own 
terms ;  these  latter  were  generally  apprenticed  to  the 
guild  as  a  whole ;  they  had  a  right  of  appeal  to  it  against 
their  employer ;  and  they  had  a  reasonable  hope  of  rising 
to  the  rank  of  guild-master  in  their  turn.  Even  in  the 
countryside,  where  elements  of  servitude  restricted  the 
independence  of  the  peasant,  manorial  property  did  not 
operate  to  reduce  him  to  the  status  of  a  proletarian,  and 
"the  ordinary  child  was  still  born  into  a  system  in  which 
the  basis  of  his  work  and  livelihood  was  assured  to 
him."  Herr  Beer  says  of  the  peasants  of  the  1381  re- 
bellion, "They  were  not  atomized,  propertyless  pro- 
letarians, but  partners  of  agrarian  co-operative  associa- 
tions, imbued  with  the  traditions  of  their  ancient  liberties 
and  with  sentiments  of  communal  life.  .  .  they  did  not 
formulate  any  communist  programme,  for  they  were  not 
suffering  from  a  system  of  private  property,  but  from 
encroachments  upon  their  common  rights,  and  against 
these  encroachments  they  rebelled."  ^ 

It  is  worth  noting  that  mediaeval  thought  esteemed 

^History  of  British  Socialism,  vol.  i.  p.  20. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      171 

industry,  commerce,  and  finance  in  precisely  the  opposite 
order  to  that  in  which  power  and  influence  belong  to 
them  to-day.  The  association  of  the  idea  of  property 
with  the  obligation  of  personal  activity  in  connection 
with  it,  and  the  exaltation  of  work  as  distinguished  from 
commerce,  led  to  that  perfection  of  the  objects  of  work 
which  resulted  in  the  beauty  and  stability  of  mediaeval 
craftmanship.  The  temptations  to  avarice  in  the  business 
of  trading  were  clearly  recognized,  and  the  social 
dangers  involved  in  the  abuse  thereof  were  also  fully 
appreciated.  Speculative  trading  was  universally  con- 
demned, and  usury  as  a  means  of  livelihood  unsparingly 
denounced. 

But  here  we  come  upon  a  point  of  considerable  im- 
portance, for  not  only  does  it  furnish  a  significant  clue 
to  the  forces  which  were  to  prove  too  strong  for  the 
effort  to  develop  a  complete  moralization  of  property  at 
the  end  of  the  mediaeval  age,  but  it  is  highly  relevant  to 
any  similar  one  which  man  may  make  to-day.  For  it 
was  the  development  of  finance  which  partly  bewildered 
and  partly  defeated  the  mediaeval  economic  teachers  in 
their  attempts  to  preserve  a  doctrine  of  social  righteous- 
ness in  a  rapidly  expanding  world-order.  Money  had 
so  long  been  regarded  as  being  fundamentally  a  medium 
of  exchange  (as  it  ought  to  be),  that  it  was  not  for 
a  long  time  perceived  that  it  could  also  be  employed  as 
"capital,"  and  indeed  the  opportunity  for  its  being  so 
but  slowly  emerged.  It  was,  however,  gradually  borne 
in  upon  mediaeval  writers  that  a  distinction  might  exist 
between  "usury"  and  a  legitimate  payment  for  the  hire 
of  money,  or  rather  money-power;  and  consequently  all 
sorts  of  efforts  to  explore  paths  which  might  disclose 
justifiable   sanctions   for  the   exaction   of   interest  were 


172      THE  MOKALIZATION^  OF  PKOPERTY 

embarked  upon.^  But  the  most  important  justification 
of  interest  was  in  fact  the  practical  one  which  lay  in  the 
increasing  necessity  for  credit,  while  no  organization 
(save  such  small  and  inadequate  experiments  as  the 
monies  pietatis)  for  the  communal  control  and  issue  of 
credit-power  was  in  existence.  Before  this  problem  fell 
not  only  the  mediaeval  economic  theory,  but  the  actual 
social  achievement  of  that  noble  approximation  to  the 
Christendom  ideal  which  the  Middle  Ages  in  some  di- 
rections really  attempted.^  If  the  origin  of  the  problem 
was  spiritual  in  essence,  it  was  none  the  less  one  of  very 
practical  implications,  and  strikingly  similar  in  both 
respects  to  that  by  which  society  is  so  crucially  con- 
fronted to-day. 

VI 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  chapter  to  trace  the 
change  of  ideas  as  to  the  basis  of  property  rights  after 
the  breakup  of  mediaeval  society,  spiritual  and  secular.^ 
It  has  glanced  at  mediaeval  conceptions  of  property  only 

^  An  interesting  and  exhaustive  account  of  these  is  given  by  Dr. 
O'Brien,  op.  cit.  chapter  iii.  section  2. 

^  Space  does  not  permit  the  discussion  of  how  far  the  centraliza- 
tion, so  largely  implicit  in  mediaeval  Catholicism,  was  a  factor  in 
the  decline  of  the  society  it  dominated.  In  the  sphere  of  economics 
it  certainly  tended  to  impose  a  rigidity  which,  despite  the  ingenuity 
of  ecclesiastical  writers  on  the  subject,  made  it  impossible  for  them 
to  maintain  the  relation  between  moral  values  and  social  practice  in 
an  age  of  technical  and  commercial  expansion.  The  danger  of 
rigidity  is  never  absent  from  centralization,  whether  it  be  that  of 
Leninism,  of  International  Finance,  or  of  Papal  Autocracy. 

'  See  on  this  subject  the  chapter  by  H.  G.  Wood  in  Property:  its 
Duties  and  Rights ;  also  chapters  ii.  and  ix.  in  R.  H.  Tawney's  The 
Acquisitive  Society,  to  which  book  the  present  writer  is  greatly  in- 
debted, particularly  in  respect  of  the  admirable  chapter  on  "Property 
and  Creative  Work." 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      173 

because  these  serve  to  illuminate  both  the  strength  and 
limitations  of  the  Christendom  ideal  as  it  was  dimly 
grasped  by  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  often  urged  by 
critics  of  mediaeval  society  that  the  men  of  that  time  were 
at  least  no  better  individually  than  are  men  to-day;  that 
they  continually  exhibited  a  failure  to  live  up  to  their 
own  standards,  and  that  the  literature  of  the  age  teems 
with  denunciation  of  avarice  and  corruption.  The  truth 
of  these  criticisms  (which  is  often  exaggerated)  does 
not  affect  the  validity  of  the  contention  that  in  the 
attempt  to  formulate  and  maintain  a  moral  basis  for 
economic  activities,  mediaeval  society  was  showing  itself 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  such  an  attempt  was  an  abso- 
lutely indispensable  prelude  to  the  achievement  of  any 
sort  of  social  justice  and  stability  whatsoever.  Men 
organized  deliberately  to  make  ideals  of  Vocation  and 
Fraternity  a  social  reality  and  to  render  more  difficult 
the  emergence  of  those  evil  proclivities  which  economic 
operations  are  always  liable  to  arouse  in  the  human 
breast.  When  we  regard  the  achievements  of  mediaeval 
craftmanship  we  may  feel  content  to  judge  the  society 
that  produced  them  by  its  work.  But  it  is  far  more 
important  to  judge  it  by  its  faith.  For  that  Faith,  how- 
ever dimly  we  perceive  its  social  implications,  or  fail 
to  apply  them  to  the  whole  of  our  life,  is  the  Faith  of 
Christendom ;  and  it  is  in  the  light  of  it  that  we  must  go 
forward  to  the  new  social  order,  by  the  unfolding  of 
which  the  Church  may  yet  come  once  again  to  the  rescue 
of  the  world. 

We  have  reached  the  culmination  of  plutocracy. 
"The  institution  of  property  has,  in  its  modern  form, 
reached  its  zenith  as  a  means  of  giving  to  the  few  the 
power  over  the  life  of  the  many,  and  its  nadir  as  a  means 
of  securing  to  the  many  the  basis  of  regular  industry, 


174      THE  MORALIZATION^  OF  PROPERTY 

purposeful  occupation,  freedom,  and  self-support."^ 
While  this  is  true,  it  is  still  the  case,  however,  that  to 
many  thousands  in  the  "middle  classes,"  a  slender  hold 
on  "property"  exists,  and  represents  the  one  social 
reality  of  which  they  will  never  willingly  let  go  on  any 
plea  whatsoever.  And  this  is  not  from  any  peculiar 
reverence  for  riches,  nor,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  from 
any  special  desire  to  accumulate  them,  but  simply  from 
the  conviction  that  only  through  property  comes  the 
power  to  make  provision  for  the  morrow  and  resist,  if 
need  be,  the  dictation  of  others.  The  grounds  for  such 
a  tenacity  are,  then,  natural  enough ;  but  the  effects  of 
it  to-day  are  disastrous  because  it  is  almost  entirely 
instinctive,  and  rallies  to  the  defence  of  the  most 
monstrous  preogatives  and  monopolies  if  only  the  defi- 
nition of  property  can  somehow  be  stretched  to  include 
them.  And  stretched  it  accordingly  is,^  so  that  the  most 
indispensable  personal  tools  and  the  most  flagrantly  un- 
justifiable tolls  are  not  only  defended  by  the  same  argu- 
ments by  the  unscrupulous  champions  of  wealth,  but 
subject  to  the  same  criticisms  by  the  enemies  of  it.  The 
humblest  annuity-holder  thus  enrols  in  the  bodyguard 
of  plutocracy,  and  every  shaft  of  the  Socialist  assailant 
serves  only  to  confirm  him  in  his  unwarrantable 
allegiance. 

While  the  forces  continue  thus  aligned  the  struggle 
for  emancipation  will  never  succeed,  and  the  money-lord 
will  be  left  in  the  secure  supremacy  of  his  golden  castle. 
Indeed  he  will  only  be  driven  from  there  when  every 
valid  interest  in  the  community  realizes  the  fatal  influ- 

*  Prof essor  L.  T.  Hobhouse  in  Property:  its  Duties  and  Rights, 
p.  2Z. 

*For  the  widely  varying  nature  of  existing  property  riglits,  see 
The  Acquisitive  Society,  pp.  57,  67. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PEOPERTY      175 

ence  of  the  dominion  exercised  by  the  organized  avarice 
of  financial  power.  It  is  to  this  power  ultimately,  and 
not  to  any  normal  forms  of  property,  that  all  economic 
policy  is  now  subservient.  It  is  a  power  operating 
behind  an  effective  smoke-screen  of  technical  obscurities 
and  fallacious  assumptions.  Finance,  indeed,  is  the 
black  magic  of  our  age.  Men  of  all  classes  offer  it 
obsequious  worship  even  while  they  groan  beneath  its 
sinister  effects.  They  imagine  it  facilitates  the  produc- 
tion of  what  society  needs;  in  fact  it  is  precisely  such 
production  that  it  thwarts.  They  imagine  its  pronounce- 
ments are  beyond  dispute ;  in  fact  the  first  condition  of 
all  social  betterment  is  that  these  should  be  disputed. 
The  task  was  one  in  urgent  need  of  being  taken  up;  it 
has  been  so,  and  the  unspoken  challenge  of  Finance  is 
now  answered.^  That  answer,  however,  whatever  its 
merits,  can  only  concern  us  here  in  so  far  as  it  throws 
light  on  the  nature  of  some  contemporary  "property 
rights"  and  helps  us  to  distinguish  the  abuses  of  money- 
power  from  the  attributes  of  a  sane  conception  of 
ownership. 

Without  space  to  elaborate  the  matter,  it  must  be 
boldly  affirmed  that  behind  the  problem  of  property  lies 
the  problem  of  credit.  And  the  problem  of  credit  re- 
quires as  a  first  condition  of  its  solution  a  general  recog- 
nition of  the  source  from  which  it  is  ultimately  derived, 
and  a  determination  to  establish  a  communal  control  of 
it  which  shall  be  consistent  therewith.  For  that  source 
is  of  course  the  community  itself,  with  that  heritage  of 

*  The  writer  is  referring  to  the  case  presented  by  Mr.  C.  H.  Doug- 
las in  his  striking  and  original  books  Economic  Democracy  and 
Credit-Power  and  Democracy.  His  general  agreement  with  that 
case  is  not  shared  by  all  the  collaborators  in  this  volume,  and  for 
the  deductions  derived  from  it  in  the  following  pages  he  is  alone 
responsible. 


17G      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

invention,  skill,  and  material  resources  which  by  this  time 
gives  to  it  the  ability  to  produce  substantially  all  that  its 
members,  as  consumers,  demand.  This  ability  to  pro- 
duce what  is  actually  required  constitutes  the  real  credit 
of  the  community,  yet  the  issue  of  credit  to  facilitate  pro- 
duction is  not  now  under  any  sort  of  communal  control 
whatsoever.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  in  the  hands  of 
half-a-dozen  banking  amalgamations  of  enormous 
power,  which  constitute  what  is  virtually  a  money-trust 
on  which  the  whole  sphere  of  industry  is  dependent. 
Moreover,  the  considerations  on  which  the  issue  of  bank 
credit  depend  are  financial  merely;  they  bear  no  relation 
to  the  needs  which  a  truly  social  production  would  be 
concerned  to  satisfy,  but  are  concerned  only  with  the 
probability  of  the  capitalist  organizations  which  apply 
for  credit  facilities  being  able  to  recover  in  prices  from 
the  public  the  equivalent  of  the  purchasing  power  which 
such  an  issue  of  credit  represents. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  present  task  to  trace  all  the  con- 
sequences of  this  fatal  system,  though  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  that  their  full  effects  should  be  generally 
appreciated.  Our  purpose  in  calling  attention  to  the  con- 
ditions of  credit-issue  to-day  is  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  they  give  to  the  controllers  of  credit  the  power 
of  actually  creating  the  equivalent  of  money,  and  taxing 
those  whose  activities  require  the  concession  of  credit 
for  the  use  of  it  Such  a  power  is  the  most  extreme, 
as  it  is  the  most  perilous,  example  of  property  rights 
arising  from  monopoly  which  plutocracy  affords,  the 
most  fundamental  usurpation  of  communal  rights  which 
it  has  achieved.  A  money-trust  controlling  credit 
working  in  conjunction  (and  often  in  actual  combina- 
tion) with  industrial  trusts  controlling  prices,  and  taking 
from  the  public  not  only  the  cost  of  the  article  produced, 


THE  MORALIZATIOK  OF  PROPERTY      17Y 

but  the  cost  of  maintaining  and  improving  the  means  of 
producing  further  articles,  besides  the  amount  needed 
to  repay  the  bank  for  the  financial  credit  conceded,  re- 
presents an  interpretation  of  property  which,  commun- 
ally considered,  verges  upon  insanity.  It  permanently 
impoverishes  the  many  to  serve  only  the  most  sordid  in- 
terests of  the  few ;  it  frustrates  the  production  which, 
scientifically  employed,  could  fully  satisfy,  with  a  tithe 
of  existing  efifort,  the  reasonable  needs  of  all;  and 
substitutes  for  that  universal  claim  on  the  communal  in- 
heritance through  the  exercise  of  which  men  could  gain 
security  and  freedom,  the  fortification  of  monopolies  by 
which  the  masses  are  rendered  needy  and  enslaved. 

VII 

How,  then,  in  our  conception  of  a  returning 
Christendom  are  we  to  envisage  the  future  of  property? 
Must  we  regard  it  as  an  institution  incapable  any  longer 
of  proving  to  be  of  service  to  society?  Is  the  social 
control  of  avarice  so  impossible  that  private  liberty  and 
individual  discretion  must  be  surrendered  altogether  to 
State  organization  and  public  monopoly?  Such  a  pros- 
pect is  not  inviting.  The  most  relentless  thinker,  who 
is  at  the  same  time  the  most  thorough-going  practical 
exponent  of  modern  Socialism,  has  thus  depicted  it. 
"Socialism,"  says  Lenin,  "is  impossible  without  large 
capitalist  technique  constructed  according  to  the  last 
word  in  science,  zvithout  systematic  State  organization 
subjecting  millions  of  people  to  the  strict  observation  of 
a  uniform  standard  of  production  and  distribution  of 
products.  We  Marxians  have  always  said  this,  and  it 
is  hardly  worth  wasting  even  two  seconds  in  arguing  this 


178      THE  MORALIZATIOK  OF  PROPERTY 

point  with  people  who  do  not  understand  it."  ^  The 
implications  of  the  public  monopoly  of  all  economic 
functions  could  hardly  be  more  plainly  stated,  and  thus 
stated,  we  see  them  to  be  wholly  incompatible  with  the 
social  values  inherent  in  the  Christendom  ideal.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  have  seen  how  impossible  is  the 
moralization  of  property  without  the  repudiation  of  an 
economic  system  based  primarily  upon  money  values, 
and  a  readiness  to  revise  the  basis  upon  which  property 
rights  can  establish  a  legitimate  claim  to  social 
recognition. 

This  book  has  not  been  written  to  formulate  a  precise 
social  programme,  but  to  present  an  ideal  and  to  make 
clear  what  is  involved  in  it.  The  vision  of  Christendom 
reveals  men  contributing  in  freedom  to  the  common 
purpose  of  building  up  a  social  order  which  can  be  offered 
to  God  as  something  consonant  with  His  will  for  man- 
kind which  He  has  created,  loved,  and  enfranchised. 
What  such  a  large  and  splendid  conception  implies  in 
the  worship  of  the  Church,  in  the  organization  of  work 
and  in  the  realization  of  human  brotherhood  other 
chapters  suggest;  what  is  written  here  of  its  bearing 
upon  property  must  be  read  in  conjunction  with  them, 
if  its  place  in  the  whole  scheme  is  to  be  appreciated. 

Its  implication  in  regard  to  property  may  perhaps  be 
best  suggested  by  the  adoption  of  a  familiar  distinction. 
In  property  for  use  every  citizen  must  be  afforded  his 
personal  share :  property  for  pozvcr  as  it  exists  to-day 
must  be  transmuted  into  communal  functions,  regulated 

*  See  his  article  on  "The  Meaning  of  Agricultural  Tax"  in  the 
Labour  Monthly,  July  1921,  p.  21.  The  whole  article  is  profoundly 
significant,  as  when  on  p.  23  he  observes :  "Capitalism  is  an  evil  in 
comparison  with  Socialism,  but  Capitalism  is  a  blessing  in  compari- 
son with  Mediaevalism." 


THE  MOKALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      179 

not  by  the  whim  of  officials,  but  according  to  defined  and 
generally  recognized  principles.  The  destruction  of 
private  monopoly  involves  the  vesting  of  credit-issue  in 
communal  organizations,  while  price  regulation  must 
depend  no  longer  on  purely  financial  considerations,  but 
upon  the  true  economic  reality  involved  in  the  relation 
of  goods  consumed  to  goods  produced.  These  vital 
changes  achieved,  the  evil  attributes  of  property  vanish, 
since  society  can  no  longer  be  exploited  by  means  of  it; 
and  it  becomes  possible  to  evolve  a  social  order  which, 
without  severing  the  individual  from  such  hold  upon 
property  rights  as  shall  guarantee  his  independence,  shall 
yet  safeguard  the  community  from  the  anti-social 
activities  for  which  private  monopoly  gives  scope,  and 
preserve  the  industrial  co-operation  which,  whatever 
technical  developments  may  emerge  in  a  free  society,  is 
likely  to  be  involved  in  the  economic  structure  of  the 
future. 

The  latter  point  is  an  important  one,  since  the  few 
champions  of  a  distributed  property  who  have  arisen  in 
this  monopolistic  age  have  tended  to  neglect  the  social 
basis  of  modern  production.  The  "Distributivist"  has 
been  too  exclusively  an  individualist.  Moreover,  he  has 
been  preoccupied  almost  solely  with  the  peasant,  and  with 
the  peasant  considered  less  as  a  partner  in  an  agrarian 
community  than  as  an  isolated  proprietor  exercising 
absolute  powers  over  his  own  fields.  This  has  given  to 
his  position  an  element  not  perhaps  of  unreality,  but  at 
least  of  irrevelance  to  the  main  problems  by  which 
society  is  now  confronted.  What  is  necessary  is  to 
relate  the  claim  of  the  individual  to  a  personal  share  in 
the  national  inheritance  to  the  facts  of  social  production 
and  industrial  solidarity. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  a  clue  to  the  problem 


180      THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY 

may  perhaps  be  found  in  a  feature  of  that  form  of 
organization  which  industrial  capitalism  adopted  in 
order  to  enlarge  its  potentialities — the  Limited  Liability 
Company,  as  a  result  of  which  the  individual  entrepreneur 
gave  way  to  the  association  of  shareholders.  "The 
dividend,"  says  Mr.  Douglas  in  a  penetrating  passage/ 
"is  the  logical  successor  to  the  wage,  carrying  with  it 
privileges  which  the  wage  never  had  and  never  can  have, 
whether  it  be  rechristened  pay,  salary,  or  any  other  alias ; 
because  the  nature  of  all  these  is  a  dole  of  purchasing 
pozver  revocable  by  authority,  whereas  a  dividend  is  a 
payment,  absolute  and  unconditional,  of  something  due. 
The  first  is  servitude,  however  disguised,  the  second  is 
the  primary  step  to  economic  emancipation.  ...  It 
may  not  be  superfluous  to  point  out  that  there  is  no  more 
inevitable  connection  between  dividends  and  'production 
for  profit'  than  between  'pay'  and  Socialism."^  What- 
ever might  be  the  ultimate  means  through  which  the  indi- 
vidual would  receive  his  share  of  communal  product, 
it  would  seem  that  a  start  might  be  made  in  the  large 
and  better  organized  industries  by  the  foundation  of  a 
Credit  Bank  in  each  case,  based  on  the  Industrial  Union 
involved,  through  which  all  the  salaries  and  wages  of 
those  registered  as  being  engaged  in  this  industry  would 
be  paid.  Such  a  bank  would  differ  from  the  profiteering 
banks  of  to-day,  which  "live  by  making  money  and  put- 
ting it  into  circulation,"  in  that  it  would  issue  capital 
as  occasion  arose  corresponding  to  the  real  credit  inher- 
ent in  the  ability  of  its  members  to  produce  (in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  owners  of  the  plant)  what  the  community 

*  It  is  necessary  to  state  that  the  conclusion  indicated  in  this 
quotation  is  one  from  which  strong  dissent  is  expressed  by  at  least 
one  contributor  to  this  volume. 

^  Credit-Power  and  Democracy,  pp.  43-44. 


THE  MORALIZATION  OF  PROPERTY      181 

required  from  the  industry  in  question.  It  need  only 
be  added  that  by  the  issue  of  such  fresh  capital,  the 
Labour  Bank  would  enable  the  workers  concerned  to 
develop  an  encroaching  economic  control  over  the 
product  and  plant  of  the  industry  which  would  logically 
end  in  proprietorship — a  proprietorship,  however,  which 
could  not  include  the  power  of  fixing  prices.  Individual 
workers  would,  as  members  of  the  bank,  draw  from  the 
industry  a  progressively  increasing  dividend  irrespec- 
tive of  their  pay,  which  would  not  cease  on  their 
retirement. 

These  proposals  are  referred  to,  without  any  attempt 
to  elaborate  them,  since  they  add  practicality  to  what 
otherwise  might  appear  as  vague  and  unrealizable  ideals. 
It  seems  clear  to  the  present  writer  that  the  development 
of  industrial  credit-banks  would  provide  an  economic 
basis  for  that  revival  of  guild  organization  of  which 
mention  has  already  been  made  in  these  pages,  and  which 
is  certainly  indispensable  to  the  achievement  of  indus- 
trial self-government  for  the  workers  of  every  grade. 
Such  organization,  by  entrusting  the  control  of  pro- 
duction to  those  actually  engaged  in  it,  and  by 
setting  them  free  to  labour  without  regard  to  the  crea- 
tion of  money-values  as  such,  would  bring  within  sight 
another  aspect  of  the  moralization  of  property,  by  afford- 
ing both  the  opportunity  and  the  motive  for  the  making 
of  things  which  should  be  fitting  to  their  purpose  and 
beautiful  in  themselves.  The  vast  deluge  of  ugly  and 
meretricious  articles  poured  out  by  the  commercial 
system  of  to-day  reflects  the  sordid  and  transient 
motives  which  induce  the  production  of  it.  Men  with 
the  assured  status  that  economic  freedom  and  industrial 
responsibility  will  give  them  will  consent  to  produce 
only  what   they   would   be   proud    themselves    to    own. 


182      THE  MOEALIZATION^  OF  PROPERTY 

The  moralization  of  property  will  restore  dignity  and 
joy  not  to  men  only,  but  to  all  to  which  they  may  turn 
their  hand.  In  the  Christendom  whither  our  Faith 
beckons  us,  God's  children  will  glorify  Him  by  their 
acts  no  less  completely  than  with  their  lips. 


THE    FAILURE    OF    MARXISM 

BY 
REV.  NILES  CARPENTER,  M.A.,  Pn.D. 

Instructor  and  Tutor  in  Social  Ethics,  Harvard  University 


184  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 


SYNOPSIS 

For  the  Christian  Marxism  is  an  alien  force :  an  examination  of 
its  principles  reveals  the   reasons   for  this. 

Marxism  is  generally  held  to  embody  three  leading  ideas:  (1)  The 
law  of  capitalist  accumulation.  (2)  The  class  war.  (3)  The  materi- 
alistic conception  of  history.  To  these  a  fourth  is  often  added — 
the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,  but  this  is  not  accepted  as  a  part 
of  Marxism  by  all  its  adherents. 

These  theories  outlined.  (1)  Centres  round  the  labour  value  con- 
cept and  leads  to  the  demand  for  the  abolition  of  the  wage-system. 
It  has  two  important  corollaries :  the  theory  of  the  rate  of  profit 
and  the  doctrine  of  increasing  misery.  (2)  Is  held  to  have  been  the 
moving  force  of  all  history  and  to  be  the  means  of  the  future  over- 
throw of  capitalism.  (3)  Leads  to  the  deduction  that  this  overthrow 
is  inevitable  once  technical  progress  reaches  a  certain  point. 

Before  criticism  of  these  doctrines  is  undertaken  the  great  value 
of  Marx's  work  has  first  to  be  acknowledged.  (1)  He  dealt  a 
death-blow  to  old-school  economics.  (2)  His  theories  all  contain 
important  elements  of  truth.  (3)  He  brought  to  the  cause  of  Labour 
brilliant    abilities,    wide    scholarship,    and    great    devotion. 

The  reader  must  beware  of  irrelevant  considerations  in  following 
the  criticism  of  Marxian  doctrines.  -(1)  The  great  gifts  and  services 
of  Marx  do  not  guarantee  the  soundness  of  his  economic  and  ethical 
theories.  (2)  Marxian  conclusions  must  not  be  embraced  without 
understanding  and  acceptance  of  their  economic  basis.  (3)  The 
shortcomings  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  social  sphere  do  not 
affect  the  duty  of  Christians  to  criticize  proposals  antagonistic  to 
their  Faith. 

The  labour  value  theory  has  been  rendered  untenable  by  the 
attempts  of  Marx  to  safeguard  it.  The  effect  of  the  three  qualifica- 
tions made  by  Marx  exposed.  Fatal  effect  of  the  destruction  of  this 
theory  in  undermining  the  Marxian  position.  The  theory  of  the 
rate  of  profit  examined.  Labour-value  has  no  real  existence.  The 
Marxist's  "alleged  solution  administers  a  death-blow." 

History  has  not  verified  the  Marxian  analysis — notably  with  refer- 
ence to  the  doctrine  of  increasing  misery.  Neo-Marxist  interpreta- 
tions of  this  doctrine  beside  the  point.     The  abolition  of  the  wage- 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  185 

system.  The  system  not  the  one  prime  cause  of  the  evils  of  indus- 
trialism— despite  the  spiritual  defects  which  it  exhibits.  Its  obso- 
lescence suggested. 

The  doctrine  of  the  class  war  is  (i.)  inconsistent  in  statement; 
(ii.)  an  inaccurate  account  of  contemporary  alignments;  (iii.)  ab- 
horrent to  Christian  morality. 

(i.)  The  proletariat  is  alternately  stated  to  include  "all  wage- 
labourers"  and  "the  lowest  stratum  of  society" — definitions  mutually 
exclusive.  Marxist's  efforts  to  escape  the  dilemma  are  either  honest 
but  futile,  or  effective  but  vicious — reasons  for  this  explained,  (ii.) 
The  class  conflict  between  employer  and  employed,  however  bitter, 
is  but  one  amongst  a  number,  (iii.)  The  class  war  can  only  be 
made  effective  by  inciting  men  to  envy,  revenge,  and  covetousness. 
Christians  cannot  look  to  God's  Kingdom  being  built  with  the  works 
of  the  Devil. 

The  materialistic  conception  of  history  is  dangerous  to  those  who 
embrace  it  in  (i.)  inoculating  them  with  a  deadening  fatalism; 
(ii.)  fixing  their  attention  entirely  on  destruction.  Moreover,  the 
Christian  must  further  object  that  the  doctrine  is  metaphysically 
and  ethically  incompatible  with  his  Faith.  Grounds  for  this 
objection  explained. 

The  persistence  of  Marxism,  despite  its  errors  and  fallacies,  due 
(i.)  to  the  half-truths  which  it  embodies;  (ii.)  its  moral  baseness. 
Marxism  was  given  to  the  world  at  a  time  when  the  working-classes 
already  held  most  of  the  theories  it  contained :  it  crystallized  them 
into  a  tradition  which  now  persists  as  such.  The  class-war  doctrine, 
moreover,  which  is  the  heart  of  Marxism,  makes  a  permanent  appeal 
to  the  lower  nature  of  men  whose  social  conditions  subject  them  to 
such  a  temptation.  It  is  for  the  Christian  to  show  them  "a  more 
excellent  way." 


186  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

Seventy-five  years  ago  a  new  revolutionary  creed  was 
proclaimed,  as  "already  acknowledged  by  all  European 
Powers  to  be  itself  a  power. "^  In  1847  the  statement 
may  have  been  flamboyant  hyperbole,  but  it  is  literal 
truth  in  1922.  For  the  new  creed  was  Marxism,  and 
Marxism  to-day  is  a  world  power. 

Marxism  rules  a  great  European  nation,  while  every 
other  industrial  country  has  seen  its  government  over- 
turned, or  threatened  by  disciples  of  the  creed.  To  the 
Christian  sociologist  such  a  spectacle  is  of  evil  omen. 
For  the  progress  of  Marxism  betokens  to  him  the 
advance  of  an  alien  force,  which  must  be  driven  from 
the  territory  it  now  occupies  before  the  work  of  building 
a  Christian  industrial  society  can  be  begun.  An  exam- 
ination of  the  principles  of  Marxism,  in  the  light  of 
economic  fact  and  of  Christian  ethics  reveals  the 
reasons   for  such  an  attitude. 

It  is  first,  however,  necessary  to  determine  what  are 
the  leading  ideas  of  Marxism.  There  is  a  general 
agreement  that  they  embody  three  major  theories :  the 
laiv  of  capitalist  accumulation,'^  the  class  zvar,  and  the 

*  Marx  and  Engels,  Communist  Manifesto.     Introduction. 

^  Marxist  terminology  is  used  throughout  this  discussion,  excepting 
where  it  is  too  highly  technical  for  a  general  treatment  of  this  sort. 
The  reader  who  finds  it  difficult  may  familiarize  himself  with  it  by 
turning  to  the  Communist  Manifesto  and  the  English  translation  of 
Das  Kapital. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  187 

materialistic  conception  of  history}  A  fourth  feature, 
the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,  is  generally  consid- 
ered a  Marxian  doctrine,  although  many  Marxists  of  the 
better  sort — humanly  speaking — repudiate  it. 

It  is  possible  here  to  give  only  the  briefest  outline  of 
these  theories.  The  law  of  capitalist  accumulation 
centres  round  the  labour  value  concept,  which  holds 
that  "the  magnitude  of  the  value  of  any  article"  is 
determined  by  "the  amount  of  labour  socially  necessary 
for  its  production,  under  normal  conditions  of  produc- 
tion and  with  the  average  degree  of  skill  and  intensity 
prevalent  at  the  time."^  The  unit  by  which  labour  is 
measured  is  "simple  abstract  human  labour,"  to  which 
various  degrees  of  skilled  labour  are  reduced  by  a 
"social  process  that  goes  on  behind  the  backs  of  the 
producers  and  consequently  appears  to  be  fixed  by  cus- 
tom." Value,  in  the  sense  here  used,  is  exchange  value; 
use  value  being  assumed  throughout  the  Marxian  value 
analysis.  The  theory  goes  on  to  state  that  the  value  of 
labour  as  a  commodity — that  is,  wages — also  equals  the 
amount  of  labour  necessary  for  its  production,  to  wit, 
the  duration  of  labour  necessary  to  produce  the  food, 
clothing,  shelter,  and  the  like,  necessary  to  support  the 
worker  and  his  offspring,  but  that  the  number  of  hours' 
labour  necessary  to  compensate  the  employer  for  the 
worker's  wages  are  less  than  the  number  of  hours  actu- 

'  Beer's  rendering  of  the  German  Geschichtsauffassxtng  is  pre- 
ferred here  to  the  more  common  translation  "interpretation  of 
history."     Beer,  History   of  British  Socialism,  vol.   ii.   p.   202. 

*  Marx,  Das  Kapital,  vol.  i.  part  1,  chap.  i.  pp.  6—12,  and  vol.  i. 
part  3,  chap.  vii.  sec.  2,  pp.  166-180.  Quotations  and  pape  refer- 
ences are  from  the  Swann,  Sonnenschein  English  translation  for 
vol.  i.  from  the  Kerr  American  translation  for  vol.  iii. 


188  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

ally  worked;  so  that  the  capitalist-employer  absorbs  the 
surplus  value  created  by  this  extra,  unpaid-for  labour. 
Rent,  interest,  and  profit  are  all  regarded  merely  as  dif- 
ferent forms  assumed  by  the  surplus  value  squeezed  out 
of  wage-labour  in  this  way.  Indeed,  capital  itself  is 
held  to  be  accumulated  mainly  from  the  same  source.^ 

The  Marxist  concludes  from  this  theory  of  capitalist 
accumulation  that  the  root  source  of  existing  social  in- 
justices is  the  economic  exploitation  of  the  worker 
through  the  wage-system.  Accordingly,  he  advocates, 
as  the  basic  and  imperative  remedy  for  these  injustices, 
the  abolition  of  the  ivage  system. 

Among  several  important  corollaries  of  this  theory 
two  are  of  particular  importance.  They  are  the  theories 
of  the  rate  of  profit   and  of  increasing  misery. 

The  theory  of  the  rate  of  profit  is  related  to  the  con- 
cept of  surplus  value.  It  follows  from  that  theory  that 
the  rate  of  surplus  value  yielded  on  any  enterprise,  rel- 
ative to  the  total  capital  invested  in  it,  varies  directly 
as  the  proportion  of  that  capital  which  is  spent  on  wages. 
That  is,  since  surplus-value  is  believed  to  be  returned 
only  through  exploited  wage-labour,  the  larger  the  por- 
tion of  any  investment  which  is  put  into  wages,  the 
higher  the  rate  of  surplus-value  secured  from  that  in- 
vestment. Yet  the  rate  of  profit,  by  which  Marx  means 
the  rate  of  return  actually  secured  on  capital  in  the 
business  world,  does  not  vary  in  this  way.  In  fact,  due 
allowance  being  made  for  risk,  luck,  monopoly,  and  the 
like,  the  rate  of  return  varies  little  on  different  invest- 
ments. The  "bourgeoisie"  economist  calls  this  practically 
uniform  yield  "pure  interest."  The  Marxist  calls  it  the 
rate  of  profit.     The  Marxist  now  has  to  explain  the  dis- 

*  Marx,  Misere  de  la  Philosophe,  chapter  i,  section  2,  Kerr  trans- 
lation, p.  55.  Das  Kapital,  loc.  cit. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  189 

crepancy  between  the  rate  of  surplus-value,  which, 
according  to  his  previous  analysis,  should  vary  according 
to  the  constitution  of  the  capital  in  each  investment,  and 
the  rate  of  profit,  which,  as  he  himself  perceives,  varies 
hardly  at  all.  The  explanation  offered  by  Marx  is  that 
competition  among  capitalists  forces  the  rate  of  profit 
actually  received  by  them  to  a  uniform  level,  equal  to 
the  average  of  the  surplus-values  extracted  from  their 
various  enterprises.  Marx  goes  on  to  say  that  the  prices 
of  goods  are  adjusted  so  as  to  make  this  uniform  profit 
possible,  the  price  in  any  article  being  higher  or  lower 
than  the  labour-value  embodied  in  it,  according  as  com- 
petition adds  to  or  substracts  from  the  surplus-value 
accruing  from  the  article.  The  theory  states,  further, 
that  the  only  case  in  which  labour-value  and  surplus- 
value  really  appear  is  in  the  total  value  of  all  the  goods 
produced  in  a  given  competitive  area.^ 

The  theory  of  increasing  misery  can  best  be  set  forth 
in  the  words  of  Marx's  famous  summary :  "Along  with 
the  constantly  diminishing  number  of  the  magnates  of 
capital,  who  usurp  and  monopolize  all  advantages  of  this 
process  of  transformation,  grows  the  mass  of  oppression, 
slavery,  degradation."  The  downfall  of  capitalism  is 
to  result  from  this  progressive  impoverishment  of  labour. 
"The  monopoly  of  capital  becomes  a  fetter  upon  the 
mode  of  production  itself. — This  integument  is  burst 
asunder.  The  knell  of  capitalist  private  property  sounds. 
The  expropriators  are  expropriated."^ 

^An  admirable  brief  statement  of  this  portion  of  Marxism  is  in 
Beer,  op.  cit.  p.  210.  Cf.  also  Marx,  op.  cif.  vol.  i.  part  iii.  chap.  ix. 
sec.  2,  pp.  197—201 ;  chap.  xi.  pp.  289—294,  vol.  iii.  parts  i.  and  ii. ; 
especially  chap.  ix.  pp.  182-203. 

^Marx,  op.  cit.  vol.  i.  part  iii.  chap,  x.xxii.  pp.  788-789.  Cf.  also 
Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.,  close  of  sec.  1 :  "The  modern  labourer, 
instead  of  rising  with  the  progress  of  industry,   sinks  deeper  and 


190  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

The  second  chief  feature  of  Marxism  is  the  class-war. 
The  Marxist  declares  that  the  capitalist  class,  which  lives 
and  moves  and  has  its  being  by  robbing  the  working- 
class,  is  in  deadly  conflict  with  it,  and  that  the  struggle 
between  exploiter  and  exploited,  or  bourgeoisie  and  pro- 
letariat, has  been  so  bitter  and  continuous  as  to  have 
been  the  moving  force  of  all  history  since  the  industrial 
revolution.  And,  as  has  already  been  seen,  the  Marxist 
expects  the  class-war  to  overthrow  capitalism,  after  the 
proletariat  has  been  goaded  to  desperation  by  its  increas- 
ing misery.^ 

The  class-war  finds  its  philosophical  setting  in  the 
materialistic  conception  of  history,  as  its  economic  foun- 
dation is  furnished  by  the  law  of  capitalist  accumula- 
tion. According  to  the  materialistic  conception  of  his- 
tory, "the  mode  of  production  in  material  life  determines 
the  general  character  of  the  social,  political,  and  spir- 
itual development  of  life."  From  this  it  is  concluded 
that  all  changes  in  the  "legal,  political,  religious,  aes- 
thetic, or  philosophical  ideas  of  men  are  merely  ideo- 
logical forms"  of  the  impression  made  on  their  minds 
by  the  struggles  attending  transformations  in  the  "eco- 
nomic foundations"  of  life."  The  inevitability  of  the 
overthrow  of  capitalist  production,  once  technical  pro- 
gress reaches  a  certain  point,  is  one  of  the  important 
deductions  of  this  theory. 

deeper  below  the  conditions  of  existence  of  his  own  class.  He 
becomes  a  pauper,  and  pauperism  develops  more  rapidly  than 
population  and  wealth." 

^The  Communist  Manifesto  is,  of  course,  the  very  embodiment 
of  the  class-war.  Cf.  also  De  Leon's  "Preamble'  to  the  original 
I.  W.  W.  "Platform." 

^  Marx,  Zur  Kritik  der  Politischen  Oekonomie,  Preface.  Cf.  also 
Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.  sec.  2,  and  Marx,  Das  Kapital,  Preface  to 
second   edition. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  191 

The  doctrine  of  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  is 
in  reality  an  element  of  the  class-war  theory.  No  sep- 
arate discussion  of  it  is,  therefore,  necessary,  especially 
as  it  is  taken  up  elsewhere.^  Whatever  is  said  hereafter 
regarding  the  class-war  may  be  taken  as  having  force 
also  with  reference  to  the  theory  of  the  proletarian  dic- 
tatorship. It  should  be  noted  that  this  further  examina- 
tion will  refer  primarily  to  the  class-war  and  only  inci- 
dentally to  the  other;  so  that  those  readers  who  refuse 
to  count  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  as  a  Marxian 
doctrine,  will  find  this  examination  germane  to  their  con- 
struction of  the  theory.-  The  criticism  of  the  doctrine 
just  sketched  may  now  be  undertaken. 

It  should  be  said,  first  of  all,  that  much  of  the  work  of 
Karl  Marx  is  of  permanent  and  priceless  value  to  the 
advancement  of  social  righteousness.  He  rendered  at 
least  three  great  services.  First,  he  dealt  a  death-blow 
to  old-school  economics.  He  "showed  up"  the  callous- 
ness with  which  at  least  some  of  its  eTrtyoues  regarded 
labour,  and  he  demonstrated,  partly  in  his  own  despite, 
many  of  their  fallacies.  Karl  Marx  jolted  political  econ- 
omy out  of  its  bland  optimism,  and.  largely  as  a  result, 
the  political  economists  are  now  devoting — as  they  should 

*  See  above,  chap,  i,  sec.  5. 

*The  case  against  the  inclusion  of  the  doctrine  in  Marxism  may 
be  found  in  Kautsky,  The  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat,  and 
Mueller,  Karl  Marx  und  die  Gewerkschaften.  For  a  collection  of 
quotations  tending  to  the  opposite  viewpoint,  cf.  Beer,  Karl  Marx 
sein  Lehen  und  scin  Lehren,  pp.  77—7%,  and  Simkhovitch,  Die  Krisis 
der  Social-democratie,  in  Conrad's  Jahrhuecher,  vol.  vii.  1899.  Cf. 
also  Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.  sec.  2;  and  Postgate,  The  Bolshevik 
Theory,  pp.  83-85.  Marx  used  the  phrase  "revolutionary  dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat"  in  his  letter  criticising  the  Gotha  programme 
(Kritik  des  Gothaer  Programs). 


192  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

— an  increasing  amount  of  thought  to  the  human  factor 
in  economic  relationships.  Again,  Marx  formulated 
theories  of  profound  importance,  even  though  not  of  the 
degree  and  kind  of  significance  which  he  himself  assigned 
to  them.  In  the  criticism  that  follows,  attention  will  be 
called  to  the  fallacies  inherent  in  such  Marxian  doctrines 
as  the  class-war,  the  increasing  misery  of  the  working- 
classes,  the  exploitation  theory  of  wages,  and  the  mater- 
ialistic conception  of  history.  Yet,  for  all  the  inaccura- 
cies involved  in  their  statement,  there  is  an  important 
element  of  truth  in  each  of  them.  Marx's  insight  in 
perceiving  these  tendencies  is  to  be  acknowledged  even 
though  his  distortion  and  over-emphasis  of  them  must 
be  pointed  out.  Finally,  and  most  important  of  all, 
Marx  brought  to  the  cause  to  which  he  gave  his  life, 
immense  learning,  a  brilliant  mind,  and  devoted  assiduity. 
Marx  was  the  first,  and  probably  the  greatest,  of  a  line 
of  men  who  have  given  the  labour  movement  historical 
perspective,  scientific  data,  and  trained  thinking — all 
of  them  invaluable.  There  is  an  element  of  tragedy  in 
the  fact  that  most  of  the  "orthodox"  Marxists  have 
become  so  dogmatically  attached  to  the  tenets  of  Marx 
as  to  have  refused  to  emulate  what  is  probably  his 
greatest  contribution :  the  application  of  scholarly  method 
and  careful  thinking  to  the  problems  of  industrialism; 
while  one  who  has  possibly,  more  than  any  other  single 
man,  been  true  to  this,  the  most  valuable  feature  of 
Marx's  work,  has  been  branded  as  a  "traitor"  by  the 
sectaries  of  the  Marxian  formulas.^ 

Before  criticism  of   Marxian  doctrines  can  proceed, 
moreover,  the  reader  is  asked  not  to  allow  himself  to 

*The  reference  is  to  Eduard  Bernstein.  It  is  not  without  signif- 
icance that  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  appreciations  of  Marx  yet 
written  appears  in  Bernstein's  My  Years  in  Exile. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  193 

be  so  swayed  by  certain  considerations,  essentially  ir- 
relevant, as  not  to  give  adequate  attention  to  the  main 
course  of  the  discussion.  There  are  three  particular  points 
at  which  the  reader  may  be  sent  off  at  a  tangent  from 
the  central  line  of  argument,  and  from  which  he  should 
be  warned. 

The  first  has  to  do  with  the  attitude  of  the  essay 
towards  Karl  Marx.  Many  persons,  who  hold — and 
rightly — that  Karl  Marx  is  entitled  to  respect  not  to  say 
reverence,  become  so  highly  offended  at  any  attack  upon 
his  economic  and  philosophical  system — particularly  one 
couched  in  as  vigorous  terms  as  is  this  one — as  to  make 
them  almost  incapable  of  reading,  let  alone  of  passing 
judgment  upon  it.  To  such  a  reader  it  should  be  said 
that  there  is  no  intention  here  of  casting  mud  at  the 
tomb  of  Karl  Marx.  He  was  a  noble  world-patriot  and 
a  brilliant  thinker.  His  leadership  was  invaluable  at  a 
time  when  the  European  labour  movement  sadly  needed 
the  courage,  devotion,  and  intellect  he  freely  gave  to  it. 
Yet  all  of  these  considerations  hare  nothing  to  do  with 
the  iinal  soundness  of  his  economic  and  ethical  theories. 
They  must  be  examined,  accepted,  or  rejected  on  their 
own  merits ;  they  must  shine  by  their  own  lustre,  not 
by  the  reflection  from  their  author's  halo.  Marxism 
must  be  studied  irrespective  of  the  virtues  of  its  founder. 
Otherwise  it  becomes  not  an  intellectual  system  but  a 
sectarian  dogma.  John  Calvin  may  have  been  a  hero 
and  a  saint,  but  there  is  nothing  sacrosanct  about  Cal- 
vinism. 

A  second  sort  of  objection  to  the  criticism  which 
follows  may  be  taken  by  the  reader  who  can  be  called 
the  "non-economic  Marxist."  He  has  accepted  the  econ- 
omics of  Marx  largely  on  faith.  The  main  conclusions 
of  Marxism  seem  to  him  plausible  and  relatively  simple ; 


194  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

they  may  be  assimilated  and  acted  upon  with  little  refer- 
ence to  the  abstract  theorizing  which  he  finds  difficult 
and  distasteful.  He  prefers,  instead,  to  build  from  it 
to  whatever  particular  proposal  he  has  to  make.  William 
Morris  seems  to  have  been  of  this  type.  To  such  a  man 
the  economic  discussion  that  follows  will  be  deadly  dull 
and  irritating.  Accordingly,  he  may  impatiently  thrust 
this  analysis  aside  as  not  worth  the  trouble  necessary 
to  its  understanding,  and  continue  contentedly  adhering 
to  an  economic  creed  which  offers  the  supreme  advantage 
of  being  easily  comprehended.  To  him  it  must  be  said 
that  error  has  always  been  easier  to  grasp  than  sound 
doctrine,  and  that  the  road  to  understanding  is  always  a 
difficult  one.  Marxism  is  specially  plausible  and  inac- 
curately simple.  As  will  be  shown  later,  its  false  sim- 
plicity is  one  of  its  cardinal  faults.  And  the  reader 
cannot,  in  justice  to  his  own  intellectual  integrity,  con- 
sent to  give  Marxism  his  allegiance  simply  because  he 
will  not  take  the  trouble  to  examine  systematically  either 
its  basic  assumptions  or  its  logical  implications.  It 
should  be  added  that  he  may  discover,  after  all,  that 
the  ideas  which  he  now  bases  upon  Marxism  may  not 
necessarily  have  to  be  founded  on  that  dogma  at  all. 
Here  again  reference  may  be  made  to  William  Morris. 
His  theories  maintain  their  vitality  entirely  irrespective 
of  their  supposed  relationship  to  Marxian  economics; 
in  fact,  the  book  in  which  he  collaborated  with  Mr.  Bax 
to  attempt  the  establishment  of  such  a  relationship  is 
probably  the  least  read  of  all  his  works. 

A  third  type  of  reader  will  take  violent  offence  at  the 
other  main  element  of  criticism  contained  in  this  essay 
— namely,  the  attack  on  Marxism  from  the  viewpoint 
of  Christian  ethics.  He  will,  with  entire  justice,  main- 
tain that  the  Christian  Church  has  all  too  long  acquiesced 


THE  FxilLURE  OF  MARXISM  195 

in  a  society  that  has  produced  the  class  hatred  to  which 
this  essay  takes  objection.  The  Church  has  smugly  ig- 
nored, or  pusillanimously  abetted  the  stupid  and  wicked 
repression  of  human  personality  that  has  characterized 
modern  industrial  life.  She  has  failed  to  bear  witness 
to  the  meaning  of  her  gospel  for  millions  of  sweated 
toilers.  Such  a  person  feels,  therefore,  that  the  Church 
has  lost  her  right  to  criticize  the  unchristian  nature  of 
the  philosophy  of  hate  which  inspires  Marxism,  inasmuch 
as  she  has  failed  to  protest  against  the  conditions  out  of 
which  that  hate  has  grown.  His  position  is  untenable. 
It  amounts  to  demanding  of  the  Church  that  she  fail  to 
bear  witness  to  her  message  in  the  future,  because  she 
has  failed  to  do  so  in  the  past.  The  Christian  Gospel  of 
righteousness  is  eternally  valid,  and  the  Christian  sociol- 
ogist must  be  true  to  that  Gospel,  even  though  he  may  be 
wearing  sack-cloth  and  ashes  for  the  disloyalty  to  it  of 
the  Church  to  which  he  owes  allegiance.  Fully  acknow- 
ledging the  sinfulness  of  the  conditions  out  of  which 
class  antagonisms  have  arisen,  he  must  still  assert  the 
sinfulness  of  an  intellectual  system — even  though  it  is 
propounded  on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  classes — which 
perpetuates  and  embitters  such  antagonisms. 

The  law  of  capitalist  accumulation  supplies  the  econ- 
omic foundation  for  Marxism,  and  a  very  poor  founda- 
tion it  is.  It  rests  upon  the  labour  value  theory  already 
outlined.  And  this  theory  has  suffered  the  strange  fate  of 
having  been  rendered  entirely  untenable  by  the  attempts 
of  Marx  to  safeguard  it.  Marx  was  too  good  a  thinker 
not  to  see  that  a  crude,  unqualified  labour  theory  of  value 
could  not  hold  together.  The  concept  is  consequently 
modified  in  three  respects :  first,  by  admitting  the  pre- 
sence of  use-value,  or,  in  current  terms,  utility,  in  articles 


196  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

of  value;  second,  by  allowing  only  "socially  necessary 
labour"  to  be  used  as  a  source  and  measure  of  value; 
third,  by  reducing  various  degrees  of  skill  to  "simple" 
labour,  through  a  "social  process."^ 

The  first  qualification  is  damaging  to  the  theory;  the 
next  two  are  destructive  of  it.  If  it  is  once  granted 
that  use-value  must  be  present  in  an  article,  but  is  never- 
theless maintained  that  duration  of  labour  is  the  real 
indicator  of  value,  then  the  "utility"  theorist  can  equally 
well  admit  that  labour  may  have  to  be  present  in  such 
an  article  but  maintain  that  use-value  is  the  real  source 
and  measure  of  value.  Furthermore,  once  it  is  admitted 
that  other  qualities  embodied  in  an  article  besides  the 
labour  involved  in  its  manufacture  are  necessary  to  its 
value,  then  the  labour-value  theorem  breaks  down;  for 
unless  such  a  theory  can  hold  that  duration  of  labour 
provides  the  sole  and  only  determinant  of  value,  it  is 
not  a  theory  of  value  at  all,  but  simply  a  one-sided 
statement  of  the  fact  that  certain  constituents,  including 
labour,  enter  into  the  fixing  of  value. 

The  stipulations  as  to  "socially  necessary  labour"  and 
the  equation  of  different  degrees  of  skill  by  a  "social 
process"  provide  the  final  coup  de  main  for  the  theory. 
They  both  have  the  same  import.  The  first  is  made  to 
meet  the  obvious  objection  that,  if  only  duration  of 
labour  fixes  value,  then  the  longer  it  takes  to  make  an 
article  the  more  valuable  it  will  be ;  so  that  the  enterprising 
manufacturer  will  hire  all  the  lazy,  crippled,  and  awk- 
ward working-men  in  the  country,  in  order  to  capitalize 

'The  writer  makes  no  claim  to  any  originality  in  the  criticisms  of 
Marxist  economics  here  advanced.  They  were  most  of  them  made 
a  generation  ago.  The  recrudescence  of  unmodified  Marxian 
economics  at  the  present  time,  however,  makes  it  plain  that  these 
criticisms  want  repeating. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  197 

their  ineptitude  into  huge  sums  of  surplus-value.  The 
reply  that  only  "socially  necessary"  labour,  "average 
degrees  of  skill,"  and  the  like  are  counted  into  value, 
raises  the  further  question  as  to  where  and  how  these 
are  fixed.  The  answer  is  plain:  they  are  fixed  in  the 
market,  where  the  pull  of  economic  forces,  in  the  process 
of  fixing  values  of  all  sorts,  also  adjusts  the  relative 
estimation  of  different  degrees  of  skill,  industry,  and 
che  like.  That  is  to  say,  the  labour  used  by  Marx  to 
measure  value  is  that  labour  whose  value  has  already 
been  fixed. 

A  clearer  case  of  circular  reasoning  occurs  in  the  next 
modification  of  the  theory.  Here  Marx  is  confronted 
with  tlie  necessity  of  determining  which  among  countless 
gradations  of  skill  in  labour  shall  be  used  as  a  unit  for 
measuring  labour — how,  that  is,  the  labour  of  the  Am- 
sterdam diamond  cutter  can  be  compared  with  the  labour 
of  the  South  African  "black  boy,"  who  mines  the  dia- 
monds. Marx's  answer  that  they  are  all  equated  in 
terms  of  "simple"  labour  by  a  "social  process"  is  simply 
a  roundabout  way  of  saying  they  are  given  different 
valuations  in  the  market.  The  "social  process"  does 
not  "go  on  behind  the  backs  of  the  producers" ;  it  is 
part  and  parcel  of  their  economic  activities.  A  man 
must  be  an  orthodox  Marxist  before  the  activities  fixing 
market  values  can  go  on  behind  his  back !  The  statement 
comes  to  this :  the  unit  of  "simple  labour"  by  which  value 
is  measured  is  the  result  of  the  scale  of  values  fixed 
in  the  market;  exchange-value  is  measured  in  terms  of 
a  unit  that  is  itself  measured  in  terms  of  the  exchange- 
values  set  in  the  market :  exchange-value  is  measured  in 
terms  of  exchange-value.     The  circle  is  complete. 

The  labour  theory  of  value  having  been  killed,  the 
entire   theoretical    structure   of    Marxism   dies   with    it. 


198  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

No  labour-value,  no  surplus-value;  no  surplus-value,  no 
exploitation ;  no  exploitation,  no  class-war ; — in  short,  no 
Marxism. 

The  foregoing  criticism  of  Marxism  economics  has  been 
so  compressed  that  it  may  not  seem  entirely  conclusive. 
Those  who  are  still  convinced  that  "there  must  be  some- 
thing in  it"  may  get  further  light  by  considering  the 
theory  of  the  rate  of  profit.  The  reasoning  by  which 
Marx  attempts  in  this  instance  to  square  his  theory  of 
surplus-value  with  the  facts  amounts  to  a  denial  of  the 
validity  of  the  entire  Marxian  analysis. 

It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  value,  according  to  the 
Marxian  definition,  is  exchange-value.  Now,  unless  ex- 
change-value means  the  actual  relation  in  which  goods 
are  bought  and  sold  for  one  another,  allowing  for  minor 
fluctuations,  it  means  nothing,  and  any  attempt  to  discuss 
value,  in  the  Marxian  sense,  without  giving  it  such  a 
meaning  is  tantamount  to  a  giving  up  of  the  theory.  Yet 
this  is  precisely  what  Marx  does  in  his  attempt  to  account 
for  the  uniform  rate  of  profit.  He  solves  the  contradic- 
tion between  this  rate,  and  the  variable  rate  of  surplus- 
value  demanded  by  this  theory  of  labour-value  by  boldly 
declaring  that  labour-value  has  no  part  in  the  prices  of 
goods,  that  is,  in  their  actual  exchange  relations.  Nor 
are  the  prices  to  which  he  refers  abnormal,  momentary 
fluctuations  from  a  normal  exchange  relation.  They  are 
the  normal  exchange  ratio,  for  they  are  bound  up  with 
the  uniform  profit.  Thus,  according  to  Marx,  labour- 
value,  which  is  the  exchange  relation  of  goods,  has  no 
place  in  the  normal  and  actual  exchange  of  goods ;  that 
is,  labour-value  has  no  real  existence. 

"Aha!"  tlie  Marxist  may  exclaim,  "you  forget  that  the 
theory  expressly  states  that  labour-value  and  surplus- 
value  do  have  tangible  existence.     They  appear  in  the 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  199 

total  value  of  all  the  goods  in  any  market  and  from  them 
are  derived  the  average  rate  of  profit,  upon  which,  accord- 
ingly, their  market  prices  depend.  The  labour  theory 
of  value  has  not  been  given  up ;  it  has  been  merely  elab- 
orated to  fit  the  complexities  of  modern  economic  organi- 
zation." Just  so.  But  in  so  far  as  the  explanation  is  true, 
it  means  nothing;  and  in  so  far  as  it  means  anything, 
it  is  mere  unsupported  statement.  It  is  perfectly  true 
that  the  value  in  exchange  of  all  the  goods  in  a  market 
equals  the  sum  of  their  respective  prices,  but  this  tells 
us  nothing  about  the  source  or  distribution  of  the  separ- 
ate values.  The  fact  that  the  age  of  two  men  together 
equals  seventy-five  years  tells  us  just  nothing  about  the 
age  of  either. 

If  this  statement  is  to  be  of  any  account  as  an  explana- 
tion of  value,  it  must  mean  that  the  sum  total  of  values 
in  the  market  equals  the  sum  total  of  labour-time  repre- 
sented by  tlie  goods  in  the  market.  And  here  the  theory 
comes  right  back  to  its  original  position  of  taking  one 
of  a  number  of  constituent  elements  in  the  value  of  goods 
and  saying  that  it  is  the  sole  source  of  value — with  this 
added  difference,  that  the  original  statement  of  the 
theory  attempted  to  adduce  verification  from  economic 
experience,  whereas  this  proposition  is  expressly  cut  off 
from  any  reference  to  actualities,  is  in  fact  a  sheer  specu- 
lation. It  might  just  as  reasonably  assert  that  the  value 
of  all  the  goods  in  the  market  equals  their  total  radio- 
activity, or  their  total  cubical  content.  If  the  explana- 
tion of  the  rate  of  profit  is  a  recantation  of  all  that 
precedes  it,  the  attempt  to  justify  the  explanation  is 
simply  so  much  solemn  nonsense.  "Thus,  far  from 
effecting  the  solution  of  the  threatened  doctrine,  this 
alleged  solution  administers  a  death-blow,   and  implies 


200  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

the  categorical  negation  of  what  it  proposes  to 
support."^ 

The  Marxist  may  still  return  to  the  attack.  "I  don't 
care  a  tin  whistle  for  your  economic  theorizing.  What 
I  depend  upon  is  reality.  Many  a  great  truth  has  been 
put  in  logically  defective  form,  but  the  truth  has  with- 
stood its  imperfect  statement.  As  a  description  of  capi- 
talist production,  Marx's  is  unimpeachable.  History  has 
proven  his  analysis  to  be  the  right  one."  Very  well, 
let  history  speak. 

If  the  predictions  of  Marxism  have  been  fulfilled, 
then  it  still  deserves  respect.  Yet  it  is  so  abundantly 
clear  that  history  has  not  borne  out  Marx's  prophecies 
that  the  more  honest  Marxists  have  been  forced  to 
revise  their  theories,  until  one  doubts  whether  they  can 
be  called  Marxists  at  all.  There  is  no  intention  to  re- 
peat here  the  detailed  statistical  and  historical  data  which 
the  "revisionists"  have  compiled  to  prove  the  non-fulfil- 
ment of  Marxian  forecasts.'  One  of  the  predictions 
may,  however,  be  briefly  examined  in  the  light  of  histori- 
cal fact.  The  theory  of  increasing  misery  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  and  important  of  them.  Not  only  is  the 
ultimate  debacle  of  capitalism  contingent  upon  it,  but 
it  epitomizes  the  entire  Marxist  law  of  capitalist  accumu- 
lation. Yet  if  any  fact  of  recent  social  history  is  well 
established,  it  is  that  the  wage-earner,  far  from  sinking 
"deeper  and  deeper  below  the  conditions  of  existence  of 
his  own  class,"  has  maintained  his  position,  and,  in 
addition,  made  a  very  considerable  advance.     Statistics 

*  Loria,  Karl  Marx,  Allen  and  Unwin  translation,  p.  78.  Loria, 
be  it  noted,  is  a  sufficiently  devoted  follower  of  Marx  to  have  been 
brought  out  in  English  by  Eden  and  Cedar  Paul. 

^Especially  Bernstein,  Evolutionary  Socialism;  Simkhovitch, 
Marxism  versus  Socialism. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  201 

of  real  and  money  wages,  of  pauperism,  of  tax  returns, 
studies  of  family  budgets — every  scientific  device  for 
gauging  the  economic  status  of  the  working-class  tells 
the  same  story.  The  working-man  is  not  worse  off  than 
he  was  in  i860;  he  is  a  great  deal  better  off.  There  has 
been  a  set-back  for  some  sections  of  the  population  since 
1914,  but  even  the  most  enthusiastic  pessimist  will  not 
seriously  maintain  that  any  appreciable  portion  has  been 
reduced  to  the  conditions  which  were  general  in  1860/ 
Neither  has  the  concentration  of  the  ownership  of  wealth 
proceeded  according  to  plan.  On  the  contrary,  thanks 
to  the  development  of  savings  banks  and  the  investment 
market,  the  ownership  of  industrial  capital  is  more 
widely  diffused  than  ever  before. 

Here  the  Marxist  retorts,  "Yes,  but  the  relative  differ- 
ence between  rich  and  poor  is  greater  than  it  was;  the 
working-class  is  proportionately  worse  off  than  before, 
if  not  actually  poorer.  As  for  concentration  of  capital, 
it  is  control  that  counts,  and  dare  you  say  that,  through 
trusts  and  banking  cliques,  control  of  industry  is  not 
becoming  more  centralized  every  day?"^  Possibly;  it 
is  a  matter  of  complete  indifference  to  this  discussion. 
Marx  had  nothing  to  say  about  the  relative,  but  the  actual 
condition  of  the  proletariat.  It  was  to  sink  "below  the 
conditions  of  existence" ;  capitalism  was  specifically 
charged  with  being  unable  to  maintain  its  own  labour 
force.^    And  capital  was  to  be  "monopolized,"  definitely, 

*  The  presence  of  famine  in  portions  of  Europe  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case.  The  misery  which  Marx  predicted  was  not  to  come 
about  by  war — capitalist  or  otherwise,  but  was  to  accompany  the 
normal,  peaceful  progress  of  capitalist  production. 

'  Thus   Loria,   op.   cit.   pp.   67-69 ;   Postgate,   op.   cit.   pp.  30-33. 

"Tt  is  unfit  to  rule  because  it  is  incompetent  to  assure  an  existence 
to  its  slave  within  his  slavery."  Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.  close  of 
sec.  2.  If  the  statement  had  read  "unable  to  assure  a  proper  exist- 
ence .    .    ."it  would,  of  course,  be  unobjectionable  to-day.     It  is 


202  THE  FAILUEE  OF  MARXISM 

physically  owned  by  a  few  "magnates,"  not  merely 
manipulated  by  them/  Any  other  prediction  was  mean- 
ingless either  as  a  deduction  from  the  law  of  capitalist 
accumulation,  or  as  a  precedent  condition  to  the  proletar- 
ian revolution.  The  upsetting  of  the  prediction  cannot 
be  explained  away  by  substituting  for  it  one  which 
Marx  did  not  and  could  not  logically  make.  The  pro- 
phecy has  failed,  and  its  failure  gives  the  lie,  finally  and 
conclusively,  to  the  economic  theories  of  Marxism. 

Let  it  be  kept  in  mind  that  there  is  no  idea  here  to 
hold  a  brief  for  the  present  industrial  structure.  It  has 
its  faults  in  plenty,  else  this  book  had  not  been  written. 
Nor  is  there  any  intention  of  conveying  the  impression 
that  labour  is  well  off,  or  even  is  as  well  off  as  before 
19 14,  but  merely  that  it  is  better  off  than  in  i860.  Neither 
is  there  any  desire  to  credit  the  blind  workings  of  the 
system  with  the  advances  that  labour  has  made.  Trade- 
union  and  Government  action  have  undoubtedly  played 
a  part  of  major  importance — although  Marx  denied  to 
trade-unions  any  lasting  value  in  advancing  the  worker's 
status.  Finally,  as  has  just  been  said,  there  is  no  idea 
of  ignoring  the  fact  that  the  control  of  industry  is  becom- 
ing ever  more  restricted,  partly  through  the  machinery 
of  interlocking  directorates,  holding  companies,  trade 
associations,  and  other  familiar  phenomena  of  corpora- 
tion finance ;  partly  through  the  growing  industrial  hege- 
mony of  the  banker.     All  this  may  be  true.     But  is  has 

not  to  be  denied  that  the  worker's  standard  of  life  is  lower  than  it 
should  be  or  might  be,  but  Marx  is  talking  not  in  terms  of  a  proper 
standard  of  life,  but  of  physical  existence. 

*This  is  not  to  say  that  the  public  control,  or  even  dissolution  of 
monopolies  and  financial  oligarchies,  is  not  of  primary  importance. 
It  must  be  insisted,  however,  that  centralized  control  of  a  few  key 
industries  was  not  what  Marx  predicted.  He  thought  that  all  own- 
ership of  all  productive  instruments  would  pass  into  a  few  hands. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  203 

nothing  to  do  zvith  the  truth  or  falsity  of  Marxian  econ- 
omics. It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  developments  have 
been  "something  like"  what  Marx  predicted,  any  more 
than  it  would  be  proper  to  praise  a  doctor  for  diagnosing 
a  benignant  tumour  as  a  cancer.  One  is  "something  like 
the  other,"  but  the  difference  is  that  between  life  and 
death.  And  there  is  a  life  and  death  difference  between 
Marx's  predictions  and  the  facts  of  industrial  develop- 
ment, at  least,  so  far  as  his  own  theory  is  concerned. 
For  it  is  necessary  to  the  validating  of  his  theory  that 
his  predictions  should  come  true  literally  and  completely. 
Only  if  so  carried  out  are  they  of  value  as  verifications 
of  his  economic  theories.  Those  theories  led  Marx  to  the 
clear-cut  conclusion  that  the  worker  by  hand  and  by 
brain  would  become  progressively  poorer  while  the  cap- 
italists were  seizing  more  and  more  of  the  world's  wealth 
and  themselves  growing  fewer  and  fewer  in  number. 
Unless  this  has  happened — just  this,  and  not  "something 
like  it" — his  economic  theories  are  belied  by  the  facts. 
Finally,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  inquiry  into 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  Marx's  prediction  has  not  been 
undertaken  on  its  own  account,  but  because  of  its  relation 
to  the  general  question  of  the  economic  basis  for  the 
Marxian  revolutionary  theory.  This  theory  demands  the 
overthrow  of  the  wage-system,  as  the  inevitable  and 
solely  sufficient  objective  of  the  revolution.  It  does  so 
because  it  concludes — in  the  picturesque  language  of  a 
great  American  Marxist — that  "the  worker  is  skinned  at 
the  point  of  production  out  of  all  but  his  bare  necessities." 
If  this  is  true — if  it  is  an  indubitable  scientific  fact  that 
every  wage-payment  necessarily  involves  the  "skinning" 
of  the  worker,  then  the  thing  to  do  is  to  smash  the 
present  economic  structure,  and  the  wage-system  with  it. 
But  is  is  not  a  fact  that  the  payment  of  wages  inevitably 


204  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

involves  the  yielding  of  surplus-value  to  the  employer; 
and  the  economic  ills  of  the  present  industrial  order  can 
not  be  infallibly  cured  by  the  simple  process  of  destroying 
the  wage-system. 

Let  it  be  repeated,  there  are  plenty  of  things  the  matter 
w^ith  the  wage-system,  or  more  precisely,  perhaps,  with 
the  wage-relation.  As  the  National  Guildsmen  have 
made  abundantly  clear,  it  involves  a  debased  status,  a 
non-participation  in  control,  and  a  soul-destroying  pas- 
sivity incompatible  with  the  Gospel  of  Him  who  came 
that  humanity  might  have  life,  and  have  it  more  abund- 
antly. Further,  it  is  possible  as  Messrs.  Douglas  and 
Orage  have  concluded,  that  wages,  like  any  form  of 
wealth  distribution  based  on  specific  productivity,  have 
been  rendered  obsolete  by  the  complexities  of  modern 
industry,  and  by  the  growing  preponderance  of  non- 
human  forms  of  energy.  But  the  demand  for  the  drastic 
alteration,  or  possibly  the  abolition,  of  the  wage-system 
on  grounds  such  as  these  is  a  totally  different  matter 
from  the  Marxian  proposal  for  its  supersession.  The 
one  sees  in  the  wage-system  a  symptom  of  deep-lying 
economic,  psychological,  and  spiritual  disorders,  and 
seeks  the  modification  of  that  system  as  an  incident  in 
more  far-reaching  re-adjustments.  The  other,  that  is 
the  Marxian  proposal,  fixes  on  the  wage-system  as  the 
one  prime  cause  of  the  evils  of  industrialism,  and  its 
overthrow  as  the  one  thing  needful  for  their  remedy.^ 

Once  the  law  of  capitalist  accumulation  is  shown  to  be 
untenable,  the  scientific  basis  for  class-war  also  ceases  to 
exist.  Yet  the  doctrine  is  held  by  many,  irrespective  of 
its  economic  foundation,  if  not  in  spite  of  it. 

^  It  may  be  further  pointed  out  that  the  Doue;las-Ora,q-e  denial 
of  the  theory  of  specific  productivity  carries  with  it  a  categorical 
negation  of  the  Marxian  theorem.  Cf.  Douglas  and  Orage,  Credit- 
Power  and  Democracy,  London,  1920,  chapter  i. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  205 

The  Marxist  who  holds  such  a  position  deserves  a 
special  word.  His  position  is  an  impossible  one,  for  he 
accepts  the  conclusions  based  upon  premises  which  he 
rejects.  He  thereby  lays  himself  open  to  the  criticism 
of  being  either  hopelessly  muddle-headed,  or  of  being 
willing  to  advocate  a  set  of  doctrines  whose  truth  he  only 
half  believes,  but  which  he  continues  to  preach  because 
of  their  propaganda  value.  And  there  is  evidence  that 
the  more  thoughtful  Marxists  are  beginning  to  realize 
their  plight. 

Yet  the  Marxists  may  indignantly  deny  being  either 
muddled  or  disingenuous.'  He  may  stoutly  declare,  'T 
don't  care  a  snap  of  the  fingers  whether  my  belief  in  the 
class-war  is  based  on  good  economics  or  not.  It  is  a 
fact,  a  horrid,  ugly  fact.  And  those  of  us  who  have  any 
regard  for  the  common  man  had  better  leave  off  prating 
about  theories  and  jump  in  to  help  him  loose  once-for-all 
the  capitalist's  death-grip  on  his  throat.  After  all,  the 
class-war  is  the  heart  and  soul  of  Marxism."  In  this 
last  statement,  at  least,  he  is  entirely  correct.  Marxism 
is,  primarily,  a  systematic  apologia  for  the  class-war. 
But  what  of  the  class-war? 

The  doctrine  is,  in  the  first  place,  inconsistent  in  state- 
ment; it  is,  further,  an  inaccurate  account  of  contempor- 
ary class  alignments ;  and,  finally,  it  is  abhorrent  to  Chris- 
tian morality. 

The  formal  difficulty  relates  to  the  nature  of  the 
parties  involved  in  the  class-conflict.  The  capitalist, 
or  bourgeois  class  is  fairly  obvious  so  far  as  Marxism 

^  Eden  and  Cedar  Paul,  Foreword  to  Allen  and  Unwin  transla- 
tion of  Loria,  Karl  Marx,  p.  28.  Beer,  Karl  Marx,  sein  Lehen  und 
scin  Lehren,  pp.  111-113.  Herr  Beer  displays  praiseworthy  frank- 
ness. After  declaring  that  the  theories  of  value  and  surplus-value 
are  the  "battle-cry  of  the  proletariat  against  the  bourgeoisie,"  he 
calls  them  "theoretical  fiction." 


206  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

goes.  It  is  "the  class  of  modern  Capitalists,  owners  of 
the  means  of  social  production  and  employers  of  wage 
labour."  The  proletariat  is  not,  however,  so  easily 
identified. 

The  Communist  Manifesto'^  formally  defines  it  as  "the 
class  of  modern  wage-labourers  who,  having  no  means  of 
production  of  their  own,  are  reduced  to  selling  their 
labour  power  in  order  to  live."  But,  later  on  it  describes 
the  proletarian  as:  "without  property;  his  relation  to  his 
wife  and  children  has  no  longer  anything  in  common 
with  the  bourgeoisie  family  relation ;  modern  industrial 
labour  has  stripped  him  of  every  trace  of  national  charac- 
ter. Law,  morality,  religion  are  to  him  so  many  bour- 
geois prejudices.""  In  other  words,  the  proletariat, 
according  to  this  account,  does  not  include  "all  wage- 
labourers,"  but  only  those  whom  the  same  document  calls 
later  "the  lowest  stratum  of  society."  Now,  the  prole- 
tariat cannot  be  two  things  at  once.  It  cannot  contain 
all  those  who  sell  their  labour-power — skilled,  unskilled, 
managerial,  clerical,  and  manual — and  at  the  same  time 
be  so  poverty-stricken  as  to  be  beneath  hope  of  family 
life  and  morality  and  religion — bourgeois  or  otherwise. 

The  difficulty  can  be  explained,  but  not  solved.  The 
first  definition  fits  into  the  Marxian  economic  theories; 
while  the  second  accords  with  the  facts.  If  only  the 
economic  theory  would  "work  out"  as  the  doctrine  of 
increasing  misery  predicts  that  it  should,  there  would  be 
no  contradiction,  for  all  of  those  who  sell  their  labour- 
power  would  have  sunk,  long  since,  into  the  wretched 
resourcelessness  envisaged  by  the  second  definition.  But, 
unfortunately  for  the  theory,  large  numbers  of  wage  and 
salary  earners  perversely  refvise  to  be  dragged  into  the 

^  Marx   and    Engels,    op.   cil.    section    1    (footnote). 
*  Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.  close  of  section  1. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  207 

depths  of  misery,  and  even  receive  recruits  from  the 
depths  below.  The  class-war  theory  is  inconsistent,  be- 
cause stubborn  fact  refuses  to  conform  to  Marx's  dark- 
hued  prophecies  as  to  the  future  of  the  working-classes. 

The  Marxists  can  meet  the  dilemma  in  either  of  two 
ways.  The  first  is  honest  but  futile :  the  second  is  more 
or  less  effective  but  vicious.  The  first  measure  is  to  tell 
the  better-paid  worker  that  he  ought  to  feel  as  badly  off 
as  his  brother  in  the  slums,  that  he  really  is  a  poor,  down- 
trodden wage-slave,  and  that  he  should  at  once  cast  in 
his  lot  with  his  humbler  brother.  Such  exhortations  must 
always  fail  miserably.  Whatever  hope  there  may  be  of 
bringing  the  residents  of  St.  John's  Wood  and  Poplar 
together  on  the  basis  of  their  common  faith  or  their 
common  citizenship,  they  will  never  be  united  on  the 
basis  of  their  common  economic  status,  because  it  does 
not  exist. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Marxist  of  the  more  practical 
sort  perceives  the  hopelessness  of  any  real  organizing 
of  the  "salariat"  for  the  purpose  of  the  class-war,  and 
more  or  less  deliberately  turns  his  attention  to  the  prole- 
tariat of  "the  lowest  stratum."  That  is,  he  respects 
Marx  the  propagandist,  more  than  Marx  the  theorist, 
and  seeks  to  recruit  for  the  class-war  the  wretched  and 
the  hungry  and  the  hopeless.  It  is  the  kind  of  tactics 
popular  among  those  Marxists  who  pride  themselves 
upon  being  "realists"  and  genuine  dyed-in-the-wool  "rev- 
olutionaries." And  if  revolution  consists  in  kicking  up  a 
really  terrible  rumpus,  it  is  very  good  tactics.  Indeed, 
results — of  a  sort — generally  have  been  obtained,  since 
the  days  of  Tiberius  Gracchus,  from  an  invitation  to  the 
poor  for  the  dispossession  of  the  rich.  In  fact,  it  will  be 
shown  later  that  just  because  the  Marxian  class-war 
doctrine  makes   such  an  appeal,   it  gains   much  of   its 


208  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

vitality.  Nevertheless,  such  a  class-war,  inevitably 
carried  on  by  a  fraction  of  those  who  sell  their  labour- 
power,  cannot  by  any  stretch  of  the  imagination  claim 
to  be  "the  movement  of  the  immense  majority  in  the 
interests  of  the  immense  majority."  When  the  leaders 
of  a  class-war  of  such  dimensions  attempt  to  justify 
its  excesses  and  anomalies  by  pleading  the  "interests  of 
the  immense  majority,"  they  are  talking  nonsense.  A 
class-war  of  this  sort  is  carried  on  in  the  interests  of  a 
minority,  irrespective  of  the  interests  of  the  majority, 
and  often  in  opposition  to  them. 

To  all  of  this  the  "revolutionary"  Marxist  will  prob- 
ably remain  impervious.  "I  am  not  concerned  with  con- 
sistencies or  inconsistencies,"  he  says,  "and  am  not  at  all 
worried  if  the  proletariat  is  not  so  all-inclusive  as  Marx 
predicted.  It  is  sufficiently  large  to  make  plenty  of 
trouble  for  the  capitalist  class.  Furthermore,  in  the 
sense  that  the  struggle  between  employer  and  employed 
is  an  expression  of  the  class-war,  it  is  the  biggest  social 
fact  in  contemporary  civilization.  The  one  great  social 
cleavage  to-day  is  that  of  labour  versus  capital."  The 
only  trouble  with  this  statement  is  that  it  isn't  so. 

There  is  no  need  to  preach  "industrial  pacifism"  to 
establish  this  point.  There  is  plenty  of  antagonism 
between  employer  and  employed.  Generally  speaking, 
their  relations  are  those  of  armed  truce,  frequently 
broken  by  bitter  and  devastating  war.  But  there  are 
other  class-conflicts.^  Here  in  the  United  States,  we 
can  distinguish  at  least  three  others,  one  of  which  leads 
to  frequent  disorder  and  death :  white  versus  black,  native 

*  A  class  is  taken  here  as  meaning  "a  number  or  body  of  persons 
with  common  characteristics,  or  in  like  circumstances,  or  with  a 
common  purpose."     New  Standard  Dictionary. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  209 

versus  immigrant/  city  versus  country.^  There  is  not 
one  class-war,  but  several,  all  going  on  at  once,  each 
ignoring  and  occasionally  overriding  the  others.  At 
times  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labour  dominates ; 
at  times  other  conflicts  force  it  into  the  background,^  and 
it  is  mere  verbal  jugglery  to  call  the  other  struggle  a 
"phase"  of  the  capital-labour  conflict,  because  the  capi- 
talist takes  advantage  of  it.  As  well  say  that  a  wind 
taken  advantage  of  for  a  gas  attack,  during  the  late 
War,  was  a  "phase"  of  the  War! 

The  class-war  doctrine  fails  to  square  with  the  facts 
both  with  respect  to  the  alleged  identity  of  the  proletariat 
with  the  wage  and  salary-earning  class,  and  with  respect 
to  its  attempt  at  the  resolution  of  all  class  conflicts  into 
that  between  capital  and  labour. 

Yet  the  Marxist  can  probably  not  be  budged  by  con- 
siderations of  this  sort  from  a  dogma  of  such  matchless 
propaganda  value  as  the  class-war.  But  the  propaganda 
it  spreads  is  the  sort  which  constitutes  a  negation  of 
Christian  morality.  It  rests  upon  motives  incompatible 
with  the  Christian  ideal.     In  so  far  as  the  theory  has  any 

'  The  persecution  of  "Bolsheviks"  in  America  during  the  winter 
1919-1920  was  largely  an  expression  of  a  long-accumulated  hostility 
towards  "foreigners."  The  recently-enacted  restriction  immigration 
law  indicates  the  lengths  to  which  this  feeling  has  gone. 

■  The  rurally  elected  legislature  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  has 
sought  to  recall  the  charter  of  the  city  of  Hartford,  because  of  the 
latter's  refusal  to  abide  by  an  anti-daylight-saving  law,  passed  in 
the  interests  of  the  farmers.  Hostility  between  New  York  city  and 
"up-state"  legislators  in  New  York  state  politics  is  proverbial.  Great 
bitterness  has  been  aroused  by  the  recently  organized  Congressional 
"farmers'  bloc." 

*As  in  the  southern  United  States,  where  the  "poor  white,"  in 
his  hostility  for  the  negro,  entirely  disregards  the  identity  of  econo- 
mic interest,  which  he  and  his  black  fellow-worker  have  against 
the  land-owner  and  employer. 


210  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

practical  potency,  it  preaches  a  war  of  the  poor  against 
the  rich ;  and,  more  than  this,  a  war  in  which  the  poor  are 
urged  forward  under  the  lash  of  envy,  revenge,  and 
covetousness.  It  preaches  the  kind  of  war  that  is  no  war, 
but  a  jacquerie. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  Christianity  cannot  countenance 
the  taking  of  strong  measures  by  the  community  against 
functionless  and  predatory  property,  provided  such 
measures  are  undertaken  on  behalf  of  the  whole  com- 
munity, and  in  the  spirit  of  service  to  it.  But  the 
Christian  Faith  of  love  and  service  cannot  contemplate 
with  anything  but  reprobation  the  indiscriminate  turning 
loose  upon  any  class,  rich  or  not,  of  another  class, 
hungering  for  vengeance  and  for  spoil.  The  responsi- 
bility for  the  causes  leading  to  the  existence  of  such 
passions  in  the  breasts  of  thousands  of  God's  people  is 
beside  the  point  in  this  connection.  It  is  enough  here  to 
point  out  the  utter  heathenishness  of  a  creed  which  de- 
liberately plays  upon  those  passions.  God's  Kingdom 
never  zvill  be  built  with  the  zvorks  of  the  devil. 

The  doctrine  of  the  materialistic  conception  of  history 
has  met  less  hostile  criticism  than  the  theories  of  the 
class-war  and  of  capitalist  accumulation,  largely  because 
most  anti-socialists  have  not  been  themselves  altogether 
free  from  materialism.  There  are  two  grounds  upon 
which  it  has  been  commonly  assailed :  first,  that  it 
inoculates  the  Marxist  with  a  deadening,  optimistic 
fatalism;  second,  that  it  fixes  his  attention  entirely  on 
destruction. 

In  holding  that  the  downfall  of  capitalism  is  as  inevi- 
table as  the  course  of  the  sun,  the  materialistic  conception 
of  history  gains  in  propagandist  effect,  for  it  inspires  the 
Marxian  revolutionary  with  an  apocalyptic  zeal.     Yet  it 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  211 

has  a  boomerang  action,  for  the  Marxist  may  well  ask 
himself  whether  there  is.  after  all,  any  need  to  do  more 
than  sit  and  gloat  over  the  death  agonies  of  the  present 
order,  while  waiting  for  its  final  destruction  before  the 
inexorable  advance  of  a  new  system.  So  it  is  that  many 
Marxists  have  not  merely  refused  to  ally  themselves  with 
movements  palliative  of  the  present  industrial  regime, 
but  have  also  withdrawn  their  badly  needed  aid  from 
all  efforts  to  end  the  evils  of  competition,  which  did 
not  happen  to  proceed  according  to  the  precise  schedule 
laid  down  in  the  pages  of  Das  Kapital.^  Again,  the 
materialistic  conception  of  history  encourages  the 
Marxist  to  concentrate  his  attention  almost  solely  on  the 
destructive  aspect  of  social  change.  He  has  always 
prided  himself  on  his  insistence  upon  the  uselessness  of 
"Utopian"  planning  of  a  future  society,  whose  form 
remains  to  be  revealed  by  the  inscrutable  working  of 
economic  laws.  Such  an  attitude  may  have  had  its  uses 
in  the  days  of  Owenism  and  Fourierism.  To-day  it  is 
damnable.  It  enables  the  Marxist  merrily  to  go  about 
the  not  uncongenial  task  of  smashing  the  existing  eco- 
nomic structure,  without  a  thought  of  what  is  to  follow, 
and  all  the  time  to  dignify  as  "scientific"  his  policy  of 
sabotaging  civilization. 

It  is  for  the  Christian  sociologist,  however,  to  lay 
down  the  most  fundamental  objection  to  this  element  of 
the  Marxian  formula.  His  position  must  be  that  of  a 
categorical  denial  of  the  entire  concept.  Christianity 
and  the  Marxian  interpretation  of  history  are  mutually 
incompatible.     To  believe  that  "man's  ideas,  views,  and 

^  For  example,  the  late  Daniel  de  Leon,  whose  rigid  Marxism 
forced  him  to  withdraw  his  brilliant  capacity  and  devoted  courage 
from  the  American  labour  movement  at  a  time  when  it  was  badly 
in  need  of  both. 


212  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

conceptions,  in  one  word,  man's  consciousness,  changes 
with  every  change  in  the  conditions  of  his  material  ex- 
istence, in  his  social  relations  and  in  his  social  life,"  is 
to  believe  something  other  than  Christianity/  Such  a 
theory  not  only  contradicts  the  basis  of  Christian  faith — 
and  of  any  other  spiritual  outlook  on  life — it  advances  a 
thorough-going  metaphysic  of  materialist  absolutism ; 
and  being  nothing  but  a  sweeping  speculation,  it  deserves 
no  greater  respect  at  the  hands  of  Christian  or  other 
thinkers  than  that  given  to  any  piece  of  ambitious  and 
unsubstantial  abstraction.^ 

The  Christian  has,  however,  a  more  immediate  ob- 
jection to  Marx's  historical  materialism  than  its  meta- 
physics, and  that  is  its  ethics.  A  theory  which  declares 
that  "the  mode  of  production  in  material  life  determines 
the  general  character  of  the  social,  political,  and  spiritual 
processes  of  life"^  amounts  to  a  negation  of  any  per- 
manent moral  values.  In  fact,  it  specifically  ridicules 
religious  and  moral  scruples  towards  its  proposals  as 
merely  so  many  "bourgeois  objections."*  The  practical 
significance  of  such  a  philosophy  is  startling.  It  is  that 
any  means  to  the  proletarian  revolution,  and  any  conduct 
during  or  after  it,  are  subject  to  no  considerations  save 
those  of  expediency.  It  means  that  the  Marxist  can  do 
no  wrong,  because  there  is  no  right  and  no  wrong. 

It  means  that  the  bonds  by  which  custom  and  religion 
hold  men  together,  and  restrain  their  brute  instincts,  may 

*  Marx  and  Engels,  op.  cit.,  section  2. 

"  A  complete  discussion  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  theory  as  a 
complete  philosophy  of  history  may  be  found  in  Benedetto  Croce, 
Historical  Materialism  and  the  Economics  of  Karl  Marx  (Mac- 
millan  translation).  Cf.  also  Barth,  Philosophy  of  History  as 
Sociology. 

'  Marx,  Zur  Kritik  der  Politiker  Oekonomie,  Preface. 

*  Marx  and  Engels,  loc.  cit. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM  213 

be  lightly  broken  in  the  interests  of  the  revolutionary 
programme.  Chicane,  intrigue,  terror,  may  and  do  all 
find  justification. 

Together  with  the  doctrine  of  the  class-war,  this  aspect 
of  Marxian  materialism  presents  a  sorry  prospect  for  the 
future.  The  one  arouses  passions  which  Christianity  has 
worked  long  centuries  to  overcome ;  the  other  invites  the 
casting  off  of  any  checks  on  those  passions. 

The  devoted  disciple  of  Marx  may  reply :  "The  criticism 
of  Marxism  just  made  must  be  unfounded,  for,  other- 
wise, Marxism  would  have  died  long  since.  Must  there 
not  be  something  true  and  great  in  a  theory  which  has 
retained  its  vigour  undiminished  despite  a  myriad  of 
bitter  attacks?"  To  this  it  must  be  replied  that  Marxism 
persists  despite  its  logical  fallacies  and  its  appeal  to  the 
baser  side  of  human  nature,  partly  because  of  the  half- 
truths  it  embodies,  but  mostly  just  because  of  its  moral 
baseness. 

Marxism,  viewed  historically,  is  little  more  than  a 
systematic  and  imposingly  learned  statement  of  a  set  of 
ideas  current  in  working-class  movements  for  the  past 
one  hundred  years,  and  it  has  received  much  of  its 
strength  because  of  this  fact. 

Most  of  the  major  doctrines  of  Marxism  contain  half- 
truths.  Labour  is  an  important  element  in  value, 
although  not  its  sole  determinant.  Capital  has  exploited 
labour  through  the  wage  contract,  mercilessly  and  per- 
sistently, but  there  have  been  forms  of  exploitation  of 
the  worker,  otherwise  than  through  the  wage  contract, 
such  as  through  rents,  monopolies,  adulterated  goods, 
and  jerry-built  houses.  The  warfare  between  labour  and 
capital  has  profoundly  affected  the  history  of  the  world, 
since  the   industrial   revolution,   but  it  is  not  the  only 


214  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

class-conflict  which  that  era  has  witnessed,  and  has  not 
always  been  the  most  important. 

Nevertheless,  to  the  working-man,  wage  exploitation, 
and  the  battle  against  the  employing  class  have  been  the 
most  obvious  forms  in  which  his  sufferings  and  his 
struggles  have  taken  form  ;  so  that  he  has  magnified  their 
importance.  Naturally,  therefore,  he  has  listened  gladly 
to  a  doctrine  that  has  over-emphasized  these  features. 

As  for  the  theory  of  labour-value,  this  was  generally 
accepted  by  "orthodox"  economists  as  well  as  revolu- 
tionists at  the  time  the  working-class  movement  began 
to  become  articulate.^  Moreover,  it  has  probably  been 
at  the  back  of  revolutionary  ideology  for  centuries,  as  a 
result  of  the  teachings  of  the  mediaeval  Church.^ 

The  Marxian  theory  of  value  has  therefore  merely 
formulated  what  working-men  were  believing  at  the  time 
it  was  first  propounded,  and  have  mistakenly  clung  to 
ever  since,  while  the  doctrine  of  the  class-struggle  draws 
its  vitality  from  psychological  rather  than  historical 
sources,  as  has  already  been  shown.  It  may  further  be 
pointed  out  that  the  first  collisions  of  labour  against 
capital  occurred  at  a  time  when  an  age-long  series 
of  conflicts  between  social  classes  was  reaching  its 
climax,  and  when  the  economic  and  social  alignments 
were  often  identical.  It  has,  accordingly,  been  natural 
for  the  modern  economic  struggle  to  echo  the  phrases 
and  the  emotional  atmosphere  of  the  earlier  social  con- 
flicts, and  also  for  the  worker  to  continue  to  identify  all 
antagonisms  with  economic  ones. 

*  Beer,  History  of  British  Socialisin,  vol.  i.  part  ii.  chap.  ii.  pp.  209- 
234.     Cf.  also  the  history  and  literature  of  the  Chartist  period. 

'  O'Brien,  Medieval  Economic  Teaching,  pp.  65-67 ;  Ingram, 
History  of  Political  Economy,  second  edition,  p.  27;  Haney,  History 
of  Economic  Thought,  second  edition,  p.  92. 


THE  FAILUKE  OF  MARXISM  215 

In  sum,  Marxism  was  given  to  the  world  at  a  time 
when  the  working-classes  already  held  most  of  the 
theories  it  contained.  And  it  has  continued  popular 
because  it  has  confirmed  their  belief  in  the  jumble  of  fact 
and  fancy  found  in  such  ideas,  rather  than  attempt  the 
unpopular  task  of  telling  them  the  truth/ 

Nevertheless,  if  these  were  the  only  circumstances 
favourable  to  the  acceptance  of  the  Marxian  formulas, 
one  might  expect  their  popularity  gradually  to  diminish. 
The  effects  of  the  historical  coincidences  which  made  the 
launching  of  Marxism  propitious  are  fading  out ;  and  the 
clouds  of  confused  thinking  in  the  labour  movement 
are  gradually  being  dispelled.  Yet  Marxism  shows  few 
signs  of  abatement.  It  has  continued  strong,  because  the 
chief  source  of  its  vigour  has  been  of  a  sort  which  social 
change  and  intellectual  enlightenment  cannot  effect.  The 
principal  strength  of  Marxism  has  been  its  moral 
zveakness. 

The  heart  of  Marxism  is  the  class-war."  The  economic 
analysis  gives  to  it  an  unsubstantial  appearance  of 
scientific  authoritativeness ;  the  materialistic  conception 
of  history  endows  it  with  an  encouraging  reassurance  of 
success.  But  they  are  both  subordinate  to  it.  They  can 
be,  and  have  been,  discredited ;  yet  the  creed  of  the  class- 
war  carries  on. 

Why  it  does  so  has  already  been  made  clear.  The 
class-war  is  an  unholy  war.     Its  motives  are  envy  and 

'  It  may  well  be  asked  whether  Marx  was  anything  more  than 
the  exponent  of  the  theories  current  at  his  time :  a  sort  of  scholastic 
of  Chartism.  Cf.  Beer,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  p.  214,  and  Karl  Marx,  sein 
Leben  und  sein  Lehren,  p.  34,  and  Marx's  "Speech  on  Free  Trade," 
in  Appendix  to  the  Kerr  translation  of  La  Misere  de  la  Philosophe. 

"  As  mild  a  Socialist  as  John  Spargo  acknowledges  "the  class- 
struggle  as  the  central  ))iotif  of  modern  Socialism."  Spargo,  Applied 
Socialism,  p.  115. 


216  THE  FAILURE  OF  MARXISM 

greed  and  blind  revenge.  Its  weapons  are  trickery  and 
terror  and  brute  force.  Its  philosophy  is  the  deliberate 
denial  of  morality.    Its  objective  is  mere  destruction. 

And  all  of  this  appeals  to  men — particularly  men 
hungry  and  hopeless  and  oppressed  by  a  stupid  and  heed- 
less governing  class.  It  appeals  to  them  because  no 
man — God  forgive  him — is  very  far  out  of  the  jungle, 
and  because  such  as  they  especially  have  been  driven 
back  upon  their  brute  selves  by  a  society  which  has  per- 
sistently thwarted  their  human  personality.  Treated 
little  better  than  savages,  they  have  heeded  the  call  of 
the  Marxian  class-war  to  act  as  they  have  been  treated, 
and  to  rend  civilization  by  a  new  barbarian  invasion  from 
out  of  its  own  slums. 

It  is  for  the  Christian  to  show  them  "a  more  excellent 
way."  It  is  for  him  to  bring  them  the  aid  of  all  men 
of  good  will,  in  making  them  not  less,  but  more  human, 
that  they  may  enter  into  their  inheritance  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AND  THE 
CHURCH  TO-DAY 

BY 

FATHER    PAUL    B.    BULL 

Priest  of  the  Community  of  the  Resurrection,  Mirfield 
Author  of  The  Sacramental  Principle,  etc. 


218  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 


SYNOPSIS 

1.  The  disease  of  our  age  is  disintegration  of  human  life  due  to 
organization  apart  from  God. 

2.  Synthesis.  Christ  is  the  only  bond  which  can  bind  men  together 
as  He  is  the  basis  of  our  Humanity. 

3.  The  ideal  of  the  Church  is  not  to  guarantee  salvation,  but  to 
be  God's  agent  in  redemption,  to  establish  God's  Kingdom  among 
men. 

4.  The  Church  to-day  has  lost  the  millions  because  she  has  failed 
to  sanctify  politics  and  economics  through  a  pietistic  and  indivi- 
dualistic interpretation  of  the  Gospel.  The  causes  of  her  failure 
may  be  summarized  under  these  heads. 

(i.)  Idolatry.  She  has  acquiesced  in  the  depersonalization  of 
labour  and  in  the  unrestrained  covetousness  which  makes  an 
Idol  of  Money.  The  unjust  accumulation  of  financial  power 
cannot  be  moralized.  The  official  utterances  of  Church  autho- 
rities are  admirable  theoretically  but  practically  ineffectual. 
The  idolatry  of  property,  power,  and  pleasure  makes  Christian 
teaching  ineffectual. 

(ii.)  Sectionalism.  The  divorce  of  prayer  and  worship  from 
economic  life  leaves  the  greater  part  of  human  life  unsanctified. 
This  applies  to  nominal  Catholicism  as  well  as  to  Puritanism. 
The  making  of  a  soul.  This  sectionalism  is  a  debasement  of 
Catholic  ideals  and  accounts  for  the  loss  of  many  to  the  Church. 

(iii.)  Selfishness.  Atomic  personality  has  disintegrated  the 
Fellowship  of  the  Church. 

5.  The  Remedy  is  to  return  to  the  unity  of  the  Faith  as  referring 
both  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of  society  to  God.  Belief  in 
Christ  alone  preserves  human  values.  The  Catholic  complex  of 
dogma,  discipline,  and  devotion  alone  preserves  the  social  principles 
of   the    Gospel,    Faith,    Freedom,    and   Fellowship. 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  219 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  AND  THE  CHURCH 
TO-DAY 

The  preceding  essays  of  this  volume  have  shown  by 
searching  criticism  that  the  present  organization  of 
industry  and  our  economic  life  is  defective  and  doomed 
to  disaster  for  lack  of  a  co-ordinating  spiritual  principle 
to  bind  them  into  a  rational  whole ;  and  that  the  Kingdom 
of  God  is  that  principle  which  alone  can  weave  up  the 
life  of  man  into  a  perfect  synthesis.  The  object  of  this 
essay  is  to  ask  how^  far  the  Church  is  fulfilling  its  purpose 
of  founding  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth;  and  to 
suggest  the  principles  which  should  penetrate  and  rule 
our  social  and  economic  life  when  it  is  dominated  by  the 
thought  of  the  reign  of  Christ. 

I.  Disintegration. 

H  we  ask  what  is  the  root  of  the  disease  from  which 
our  civilization  is  suffering,  in  my  judgment  the  answer 
may  be  given  in  the  one  word — Disintegration.  The 
attempt  to  organize  the  life  of  man  apart  from  God  has 
deprived  us  of  the  only  bond  which  can  bind  mankind 
together.  The  attempt  to  interpret  the  universe  exclus- 
ively by  one  or  the  other  term  of  the  sacramental 
principles  has  led  to  the  divorce  of  what  God  has  joined 
together.  The  divorce  of  the  outward  material  form 
from  its  inward  spiritual  principle  may  be  seen  in  every 


220  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

activity  of  our  life.  In  economics  the  disintegration 
began  when  the  labourer  was  divorced  from  the  land. 
The  landless  labourer  inevitably  becomes  a  wage-slave. 
The  wage-system  divorces  the  labour-power  from  the 
labourer,  and  depersonalizes  and  dehumanizes  industry. 
So  wealth  is  divorced  from  the  work  which  produces  it; 
work  divorced  from  the  worship  which  should  consecrate 
it;  property  divorced  from  the  function  which  alone 
justifies  it,  and  the  community  which  should  be  knit 
together  by  bonds  of  mutual  service  is  disintegrated  into 
warring  classes  and  competing  individuals. 

In  education  and  study  over-specialization  too  often 
divorces  science  from  art,  thought  from  feeling,  the  head 
from  the  heart,  so  that  a  mental  disintegration  leads  to  a 
false  valuation  of  life,  that  cash  valuation  of  spiritual 
gifts  and  opportunities  which  establishes  plutocracy.  We 
seem  to  be  in  real  peril  of  gaining  the  whole  world  and 
losing  our  true  life  if  our  industrial  organization  merely 
multiplies  commodities  while  character  decays. 

This  disintegration  of  human  life  begins  in  the  in- 
dividualistic interpretation  of  our  Faith  on  the  false 
basis  of  a  discredited  atomic  philosophy;  which  by  ignor 
ing  the  social  and  sacramental  aspect  of  religion  divorces 
the  spiritual  from  the  material,  the  soul  from  the  body, 
the  individual  from  society,  and  society  from  God. 

II.  Synthesis. 

We  believe  that  in  Christ  alone,  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  who  unites  in  His  own  Person  the  natures  of 
God  and  man :  the  Son  of  Man,  because  in  each  person 
He  is  the  basis  of  our  common  humanity,  in  Him  alone 
can  be  found  a  common  human  basis  and  that  objective 
reference  and  standard  of  values  which  will  give  to  men 
a  common  aim,  and  that  spirit  of  fellowship  which  will 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  221 

bind  the  nations  into  one.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  Him  as  the 
One  "in  whom  all  things  consist"  or  hold  together :  and 
it  is  just  that  bond  of  unity  which  can  alone  redeem  us 
from  an  ever-increasing  disintegration.  Society  must 
have  some  unifying  principle.  Based  on  selfishness  alone 
society  is  dead,  and  in  time  must  fall  to  pieces  and  become 
like  worms  crawling  away  from  a  decaying  corpse, 
instead  of  like  cells,  each  making  its  best  contribution  to 
a  living  body. 

HI.  The  Ideal  of  the  Church. 

Man  can  only  be  redeemed  from  selfishness  by  being 
incorporated  into  a  divine  and  human  fellowship,  and 
so  while  our  Lord  says  so  little  about  the  salvation  of  the 
individual  soul,  He  trained  and  educated  and  disciplined 
His  Apostles  to  found  this  Divine  Society.  The 
Christian  method  of  redemption  is  primarily  corporate. 
It  begins  with  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost,  which  united  the  Apostles  into  a  Divine 
and  human  Fellowship.  Until  this  Fellowship  was 
formed  by  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  individual 
effort  to  evangelize  was  forbidden.  When  the  Fellow- 
ship of  the  divine  humanity  was  created  individual  souls 
were  added  to  it  (Acts  ii.  47). 

The  Church  was  formed  to  be  the  Body  of  Christ, 
through  which  He  would  continue  to  energize,  to  carry 
on  through  the  ages  those  things  that  He  began  "both  to 
do  and  to  teach"  in  His  life  on  earth  (Acts  i.  i).  His  last 
discourses  echoed  the  first  trumpet  call  of  His  ministry : 
for  He  came  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom,  and 
after  His  resurrection  for  forty  days  He  appeared  to 
them  "speaking  the  things  concerning  the  Kingdom  of 
God."  The  Church  was  formed  to  be  His  agent  in  the 
redemption  of  the  world,  to  establish  the  Kingdom  of 


222  THE  KKv^GDOM  OF  GOD 

God,  to  incorporate  men  into  His  divine  humanity,  to 
bind  them  together  in  the  Fellowship  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
in  order  that  in  a  brotherhood  knit  together  by  love  His 
life  might  be  manifested.  His  teaching  proclaimed,  and 
His  work  fulfilled. 

The  first  necessity  is  that  the  Church  should  have  the 
mind  of  Christ.  This  mind  of  Christ  will  include  an 
abiding  consciousness  of  God  the  Father,  that  faith 
which  is  the  instinctive  reference  of  all  things  to  God. 
The  Church  finds  in  God  the  Father  the  shrine  of  the 
absolute  values  of  Righteousness  and  Justice,  Truth  and 
Freedom  which  are  the  very  foundations  of  the  Throne 
of  God,  and  the  only  possible  bonds  for  the  Brother- 
hood of  man.  And  in  Christ  she  finds  the  revelation  of 
all  values,  human  and  divine,  which  gives  stability  to  her 
moral  judgments.  Each  soul  will  be  infinitely  precious 
to  the  Church  because  he  is  dear  to  the  Father  as  a  child 
of  God  and  redeemed  by  the  love  of  Christ.  This  re- 
lationship of  Father  and  Son  is  the  governing  principle 
of  the  economics  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  impera- 
tive and  supreme.  It  proclaims  and  preserves  the  price- 
less value  of  each  human  being.  It  fixes  his  relationship 
to  all  other  men  as  that  of  Brothers.  It  condemns  selfish- 
ness and  unrestrained  competition,  the  crude  animal 
appeal  to  brute  force  which  cannot  be  tolerated  in  a 
family.  It  is  the  basis  of  Christian  ethics  which  are 
founded  on  the  two  great  commandments  in  their  three- 
fold reference :  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart  and  all  thy  mind,  with  all  thy  soul  and  all 
thy  strength.  And  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself."  The  mind  of  Christ  in  His  Church  will  insist 
that  man's  life  is  Theo-centric  and  not  ego-centric :  that 
the  one  and  only  basis  of  human  society  is  relationship 
to  God. 


AND  THE  CHUECn  TO-DAY  223 

The  mind  of  Christ  will  inflame  the  Church  with  an 
undying  passion  for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  among  men.  It  will  inspire  the  Church  with  a 
passion  for  redemption.  For  the  Church  was  not 
formed  to  be  the  sphere  of  a  guaranteed  salvation,  but 
the  living  co-operative  agent  of  redemption.  As  long 
as  man  is  an  incarnate  spirit  the  Church  must  minister 
to  him  on  the  sacramental  principle.  It  will  have  a 
threefold  life,  institutional,  ethical,  and  mystical,  cor- 
responding to  man's  body,  soul,  and  spirit.  But  as  long 
as  it  has  the  mind  of  Christ  it  will  subordinate  the  institu- 
tional to  the  ethical,  and  base  the  ethical  on  the  mystical, 
tlie  union  with  God  by  love.  The  history  of  the 
Church  suggests  that  when  she  has  exalted  the  institu- 
tional aspect  of  her  life  above  the  ethical,  or  allowed  the 
ethical  to  be  divorced  from  the  mystical,  morals  from 
religion,  she  has  failed  in  her  mission  as  surely  as  a 
man's  life  becomes  disordered  if  his  bodily  impulses  are 
indulged  without  moral  restraint,  or  if  his  moral  nature 
loses  its  imperative  by  ignoring  God.  If  the  Church  is 
truly  possessed  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ  she  will  proclaim 
fearlessly  the  absolute  supremacy  of  God,  the  priceless 
value  of  each  human  life,  the  iniquity  of  every  sin 
against  brotherhood ;  and,  regardless  of  consequences, 
she  will  fling  down  her  challenge  to  the  world  by  expos- 
ing every  falsehood,  by  denouncing  class  privilege  and 
vested  interest-  She  will  claim  her  right  to  be  crucified 
with  Christ,  if  she  desires  to  live  with  His  life  and  share 
in  His  victory. 

IV.  The  Church  To-day. 

Are  we  satisfied  with  the  witness  of  the  Church 
to-day?  Is  she  really  fulfilling  her  function  of  establish- 
ing the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  ?    Why  was  she  unable 


224  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

to  avert  the  bloody  war  among  nations  nominally 
Christian?  Why  are  Christians  unable  to  cope  with  the 
industrial  chaos  and  floods  of  immorality  which  have 
come  to  a  crisis  in  the  War?  Why  has  the  Church  of 
England  lost  its  hold  on  the  millions  ?  Why  are  noncon- 
formist bodies  also  failing?  Why  is  the  nation  growing 
up  apart  from  God?  The  facts  are  no  longer  in  dispute. 
Not  one  per  cent,  of  the  men  of  the  nation  are  regular 
communicants.  In  one  workshop  in  a  northern  town  of 
seventy-eight  men,  only  five  ever  set  foot  in  a  place  of 
worship.  In  a  district  in  London  advantage  was  taken 
of  the  conscription  census  to  ascertain  the  religious 
allegiance  of  boys  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age. 
Of  12,500  boys  between  these  ages,  including  Jews  and 
Roman  Catholics,  only  2,300  professed  to  belong  to  any 
religious  body.  This  means  that  in  one  district  of  one 
city,  over  10,000  boys  are  not  connected  with  any  re- 
ligious body  whatever.  The  communicants  in  several 
dioceses  in  England  are  not  6  per  cent,  of  the  population. 
"Twenty-six  million  children  and  youths  in  the  United 
States  are  growing  up  without  any  systematic  training 
in  religion"  (Religion  and  Business,  p.  132,  R.  W. 
Babson,  President  of  the  Babson  Statistical  Organiza- 
tion). I  could  multiply  this  evidence  a  thousand-fold  if 
space  permitted,  but  this  must  suffice. 

Here,  then,  is  the  symptom.  What  is  the  cause  of  the 
disease,  and  how  can  it  be  cured?  The  Church  has  lost 
the  millions  because  clergy  have  been  content  to  deal 
with  symptoms  without  attempting  to  remove  the  cause 
of  the  disease. 

May  we  not  summarize  the  cause  thus?  That  a  false 
presentation  of  Christianity  has  disintegrated  Christ- 
endom, and  left  vast  forces  which  largely  control  the  life 
of  man  unconsecrated  to  the  service  of  God.     The  evil 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  225 

tradition,  which  is  not  yet  abandoned,  that  Christianity 
has  nothing  to  do  with  politics  and  economics  has 
banished  God  from  95  per  cent,  of  the  life  of  man.  For 
politics  and  economics  regulate  homes,  housing,  schools, 
education,  wages,  sanitation,  industry,  and  commerce, 
with  all  the  relationships  which  these  involve.  If  this  95 
per  cent,  of  the  life  of  the  people  is  dissociated  from  God 
and  religion,  what  wonder  is  it  if  they  feel  that  God 
doesn't  count  in  the  battle  of  life. 

We  cannot,  if  we  believe  in  God,  ignore  the  past 
without  imperilling  the  future.  We  have  to  face  the 
black  record  of  the  officials  of  the  Church  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Industrial  Revolution  from  1760  on- 
ward, as  faithfully  revealed  in  such  admirable  books  as 
the  Hammond's  Village,  Toivn,  and  Skilled  Labourer. 
If  only  the  Church  people  will  face  the  past,  repent  and 
confess  it,  and  resolve  to  amend  their  lives,  God  is  ready 
to  forgive.  Already  there  are  signs  of  a  new  stirring  of 
the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  men.  The  sins  which 
have  paralysed  the  Church  in  the  immediate  past  may,  in 
my  judgment,  be  summed  up  under  the  heads  of  Idolatry, 
Sectionalism,  and  Selfishness. 

I.  Idolatry. 

The  Church,  by  which  in  this  Essay  is  generally  meant 
the  prevailing  opinion  of  Christian  people,  has  acquiesced 
in  that  Covetousness  which  St.  Paul  describes  as  idol- 
atry. Her  formulated  teaching  is  irreproachable.  Every 
child  in  her  schools  is  taught  in  her  catechism  "not  to 
covet  or  desire  other  men's  goods.  ,  .  ."  He  is,  then, 
at  the  age  of  fourteen  sent  out  into  an  industrial  and 
commercial  world,  whose  life  is  based  on  the  acquisitive 
instinct,  whose  methods  are  those  of  unrestrained  com- 


226  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

petition,  the  law  of  the  Jungle,  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
which  in  this  case  often  means  the  most  cunning  and 
unscrupulous.  However,  we  are  not  concerned  with 
formulae  but  with  prevailing  opinion.  The  first  step  in 
idolatry  was  to  depersonalize  the  labourer  by  rendering 
him  landless,  and  then  detaching  from  him  his  labour- 
force  ;  so  that  in  starting  a  business  a  man  buys  so  much 
raw  material  and  machinery,  so  many  volts  of  electricity, 
and  so  much  man-power  or  labour- force.  Under  the 
wage-slavery  of  landless  men  the  old  intimate  personal 
relationships  between  employers  and  employed  has  dis- 
appeared, the  labourer  is  robbed  of  his  personality  and 
becomes  Labour,  an  abstraction,  a  mere  impersonal 
force  to  be  manipulated  for  the  purposes  of  other  men, 
cannon-fodder  in  war,  mammon-fodder  in  peace,  an 
instrument  for  the  ends  of  other  persons.  Having  de- 
personalized the  labourer,  our  industrial  system  seems 
to  have  endowed  Money  with  the  personality.  When 
the  War  had  reached  a  certain  stage  we  were  told  that 
"Money  began  to  talk,"  "Money  is  shy,"  "Money  is 
very  tight!"  "Money  breeds  Money,"  and  a  brood  of 
deadly  vices,  and  at  last  mounts  the  throne  of  God  as 
Mammon,  and  in  the  form  of  Property,  Pleasure,  and 
Power  claims  and  wins  the  adoration  of  the  world. 
Mammon-worship  destroys  the  soul  by  the  trans-valu- 
ation of  all  values  into  terms  of  cash,  the  cash  valuation 
of  spiritual  gifts  and  opportunities.  Thus  Feudalism 
is  converted  into  Plutocracy  by  defiling  the  fountain  of 
honour  with  the  sale  of  titles.  This  cash  valuation  of 
spiritual  gifts  and  opportunities  pervades  all  life  and 
degrades  it.  It  consecrates  itself  in  the  phrase  "the 
sacred  rights  of  property-"  Money  gives  power.  It 
affords  pleasure.     It  inflames  selfish  ambition.     It  gives 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  227 

or  withholds  the  higher  education.  It  controls  the  lives 
of  millions  in  the  labour  market  by  giving  or  withholding 
credit,  and  so  manipulating  employment  and  unemploy- 
ment. It  bribes  or  crushes  every  opponent.  It  controls 
the  legislature.  It  penalizes  virtue.  It  commercializes 
vice.  It  makes  desolating  war  and  sordid  peace.  It 
corrupts  and  stifles  tlie  conscience,  and  drugs  and  deadens 
the  soul. 

Karl  Marx  was  wrong  in  prophesying  the  concentra- 
tion of  "capital"  in  fewer  and  fewer  hands.  The  rise  of 
limited  liability  companies  falsified  this  prophesy.  But 
his  instinct  was  not  at  fault.  The  effectual  control  of 
commerce  and  industry,  of  opportunity  and  freedom,  has 
become  concentrated  into  the  hands  of  a  few  immensely 
powerful  trusts  and  groups  of  international  financiers 
who  control  governments,  and  make  peace  and  war :  and 
who  frequently  in  times  of  crisis  are  themselves  unable 
to  restrain  the  vast  forces  they  manipulate. 

Can  the  Church  moralize  this  vast  force  of  accumulated 
financial  power  and  consecrate  it  to  the  fulfillment  of 
God's  Will?  No,  in  my  judgment,  she  cannot.  It  is 
born  of  an  unjust  distribution  of  the  rewards  of  labour, 
and  it  rests  on  an  immoral  basis  of  functionless  property. 
What  can  she  do?  Nothing  at  all  so  long  as  Christian 
people  (with  many  noble  exceptions)  are  given  up  to 
that  idolatry  which  is  covetousness.  If  they  return  to 
God,  they  can  regulate  the  distribution  of  the  rewards 
of  labour  on  righteous  principles,  and  establish  prop- 
erty on  the  moral  basis  of  function  instead  of  force. 
But  this  means  an  entire  change  of  mind,  a  true  repent- 
ance, if  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  come  in  our  commer- 
cial and  industrial  life.  The  Church,  by  withdrawing 
from  the  political  and  economic  spheres  has  lost  its 
power  to  consecrate  them.    It  is  fatally  easy  and  obviously 


228  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

profitable  to  accept  the  fact  of  wealth  without  asking 
how  riches  are  acquired  or  how  they  are  spent.  Thus, 
from  the  break  up  of  the  unity  of  Christendom  till  quite 
recently,  the  Church  has  offered  Christians  no  guidance 
as  to  justice  and  righteousness  in  accumulating  riches, 
and  suggested  no  limit  to  selfish  expenditure  on  luxury. 

Was  Karl  Marx  or  Bismarck  right?  The  first  said  that 
"Religion  is  opium  for  the  people."  The  second  de- 
scribes Christianity  as  a  revolutionary  force  so  dangerous 
that  it  must  be  controlled  by  the  State.  Both  statements 
are  partly  true.  Christianity  as  preached  by  Jesus 
Christ  is  undoubtedly  a  revolutionary  force.  Religion 
as  controlled  by  the  power  of  wealth  which  "tunes  the 
pulpit,"  is  a  mere  sedative,  a  drug.  But  it  is  not  Chris- 
tianity. Would  it  not  be  more  true  to  say  that  religion 
is  opium  for  the  rich  ?  As  preached  in  many  fashionable 
churches  it  drugs  the  conscience,  it  darkens  the  mind, 
it  deadens  the  heart. 

Mr.  Roger  W.  Babson,  in  describing  the  average  New 
England  small  town,  writes  words  which  are  equally  true 
in  a  more  subtle  form  of  many  a  village  and  town  in 
old  England :  "There  is  the  mill  which  furnishes  employ- 
ment to  most  of  the  people:  there  is  the  great  house  on 
the  hill  in  which  the  owner  of  the  mill  lives :  and  there 
is  the  local  church  in  which  the  mill-owner  is  the  largest 
contributor  and  often  the  leading  officer.  In  most 
instances  this  man  has  been  a  real  benefit  to  the  com- 
munity, and  in  many  cases  he  is  quite  sincere  and  fairly 
unselfish.  In  many  instances,  however,  he  is  looked  upon 
as  a  hard-hearted  skinflint.  He  often  has  mortgages  on 
many  of  the  homes :  he  perhaps  has  a  bad  record  as  to 
the  treatment  of  his  labour  (note  the  abstraction)  and 
he  is  generally  feared  if  not  hated  by  towns-people.  The 
Church  suffers  from  such  men.     Not  only  do  they  dom- 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  229 

inate  the  minister  and  make  life  miserable  for  him,  but 
they  bring  reproach  on  the  whole  Church  industry.  .  .  . 
Not  content  with  running  their  own  business  and  a  good 
part  of  the  town,  these  men  are  determined  to  run  the 
Church  and  the  preacher"  (Religion  and  Business,  p.  13). 
Multiply  this  by  many  millions  and  we  shall  understand 
how  difficult  it  is  for  institutional  religion  to  resist  the 
pressure  of  high  finance. 

The  Christian  bodies  in  America  have  issued  an 
admirable  Report  on  "Christianity  and  Industry,"  even 
excelling  in  courage  and  clearness  the  excellent  Report 
issued  by  the  Archbishops'  Committee  on  the  same  sub- 
ject in  England.  But  are  these  solemn  utterances  of 
the  leaders  of  Religion,  these  efforts  to  proclaim  the 
principles  which  should  sanctify  our  economic  arrange- 
ments, accepted  by  Christian  people?  Scarcely  at  all, 
I  fear.  The  poor  welcome  the  proclamation  of  these 
Christian  principles.  In  Glasgow,  a  labour  leader  read 
out  twelve  propositions  on  property  to  a  meeting  of  com- 
munists and  extreme  socialists.  Each  proposition  was 
greeted  with  enthusiastic  cheers  by  this  revolutionary 
audience.  The  speaker  then  said:  "These  propositions 
are  taken  verbatim  from  the  Archbishops'  Report  on 
'Christianity  and  Industry,'  as  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
Christ.  So  don't  let  us  hear  any  more  about  Religion 
being  opium  for  the  people." 

On  the  other  hand,  when  in  two  fashionable  Churches 
in  England  the  declaration  of  the  350  Anglican  bishops 
on  the  same  subject  was  made  the  subject  of  a  course 
of  sermons  by  two  eloquent  preachers,  one  course  was 
brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion  by  the  remonstrances  of 
"the  faithful"  who  will  not  tolerate  any  criticism  of 
unearned  increment  and  vested  interests  which  is  likely 
to  be  effectual.    In  the  other  case,  the  audience  gradually 


230  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

faded  away,  with  indignant  mutterings  of  "Socialism" 
and  "sheer  Bolshevism."  Truly  as  of  old  "the  common 
people  heard  Him  gladly";  but  the  rulers  said:  "He 
stirreth  up  the  people."  This  sheer  idolatry  of  property, 
power,  and  pleasure,  of  comfort,  luxury,  and  influence, 
which  makes  men  refuse  to  listen  to  any  effectual  crit- 
icism of  profits,  dividends,  and  rent  has  established 
a  silent  tyranny  over  the  ministry.  Heavy  institutional 
commitments  make  the  Church  too  dependent  on  the 
favour  of  the  wealthy.  The  priest  who  too  faithfully 
echoes  his  Master's  teaching  will  not  be  crucified :  but  his 
work  will  be  starved,  he  will  be  frozen  out  with  the 
polite  and  polished  warning  that,  "unless  he  is  more  tact- 
ful he  will  certainly  imperil  his  promotion."  Through 
the  disastrous  association  with  the  State,  which  places 
much  of  the  patronage  of  the  Church  in  the  hands  of 
politicians,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  the  flames  of 
Pentecost  may  be  trimmed  to  illuminate  a  garden  party 
of  respectability,  and  how  the  bride  of  Christ  may  become 
the  concubine  of  Caesar.  But  the  evil  is  not  merely  due 
to  State  alliance.  It  is  due  to  an  evil  economic  system. 
It  is  as  common  among  Non-conformists  as  in  the  Church 
of  England.  Several  of  the  Labour  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment have  once  been  local  preachers  whose  bold  criticism 
of  what  is  unrighteous  and  unjust  in  our  present  system, 
awakened  the  fears  and  hostility  of  the  wealthy  members 
of  their  denominations,  and  of  the  officials  who  dispensed 
with  their  services.  So  would  they  drive  Christ  from 
their  Churches  and  Chapels  if  He  imperilled  vested 
interests  by  His  teaching.  The  future  of  the  Church 
depends  on  the  degree  of  self-sacrifice  and  zeal  with 
which  wealthy  Christians  hasten  to  moralize  their 
property  and  humanize  their  industry,  forsaking  idols 
and  restoring  personality  to  Labour,  that  the  image  of 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-Dx\Y  231 

God  may  once  more  shine  forth  from  a  brother's  face 
who  co-operates  with  freedom  and  fellowship  in  work 
for  the  commonwealth. 

2.  Sectionalism. 

When  we  ask  how  has  this  widespread  idolatry  arisen, 
we  may  possibly  find  the  answer  in  the  prevalance  of  sec- 
tionalism among  Christians,  the  habit  of  divorcing  what 
God  has  joined  together.  It  is  not  confined  to  religion. 
It  infects  every  department  of  thought.  Over-special- 
ization and  excessive  differentiation  isolate  one  branch 
of  knowledge  from  another,  and  lead  to  mental  disinte- 
gration, a  loss  of  proportion  in  the  judgment.  The  wide 
application  of  the  scientific  method  emphasizes  this  dis- 
integration. For  nothing  is  more  common  than  to  find 
men  of  science  making  an  abstraction  for  the  purpose 
of  study,  and  then  mistaking  the  truth  of  this  abstraction 
for  the  truth  of  the  whole.  But  here  we  must  confine 
ourselves  to  sectionalism  in  the  Church  to-day,  and  note 
how  it  divorces  what  God  has  joined  together.  The 
teaching  of  the  Puritan,  who  neglects  to  sanctify  the 
material  universe  by  a  false  spirituality  which  ignores  the 
body,  works  out  in  a  denial  of  the  Incarnation;  and  the 
Catholic  who  fails  to  consecrate  the  economic  life  by 
concentrating  all  attention  on  a  merely  "sanctuary"  re- 
ligion, is  equally  guilty  of  divorcing  what  God  has  joined 
together.  Souls  are  not  made  apart  from  the  body ;  nor 
are  they  made  in  the  Sanctuary  merely  by  Prayer  and 
Sacraments.  These  are  their  strength  and  joy  and 
crown.  The  Sanctuary  is  the  power-station  of  their 
life,  reinforcing  every  activity  of  their  soul.  But  souls 
are  made  in  the  strain  and  stress  of  daily  life,  in  home 
and  school,  factory,  in  office,  mill  and  workshop, 
wherever  a  child  has  to  think  or  will  or  love,  their  souls 


232  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

are  made,  as  between  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil, 
the  shuttle  of  the  will  moves  ceaselessly  backward  and 
forward  weaving  the  web  of  character.  The  soul  is 
evolved  in  the  strain  of  conflict  as  the  one  primitive 
innate  instinct,  the  will  to  live,  is  educated  into  the  will 
to  live  with  others,  which  with  increasing  responsibility 
grows  into  the  will  to  live  for  others :  and  when  this  is 
perfected  by  a  readiness  to  die  for  others  the  will  to  live 
has  become  the  will  to  love,  and  the  soul  is  made.  For 
to  love  is  to  live;  and  there  is  no  other  life. 

If  this  be  a  true  account  of  the  formation  of  character 
and  the  making  of  a  soul,  it  will  at  once  be  realized  that 
the  economic  relationships  in  commerce  and  industry 
are  as  spiritual  and  important  as  prayer  or  Bible-reading, 
Mass  and  Sacraments.  The  Puritan  who  confines  his 
conception  of  spirituality  to  his  thoughts  about  God  and 
himself,  to  what  he  calls  his  soul's  life,  is  profoundly 
mistaken.  The  very  things  he  despises  or  fails  to  con- 
secrate— beauty,  art,  music,  movement,  colour,  architec- 
ture, science,  and  industry — are  often  far  more  spiritual 
than  his  opinion  about  predestination  and  election :  for 
true  art  is  the  living  embodiment  of  creative  personality 
and  the  expression  of  the  absolute  values  of  the  good, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  true — a  real  unveiling  of  God 
which  purifies  and  stimulates  the  soul :  while  many  theo- 
logical discussions  are  merely  the  expression  of  man's 
perversity.  The  Puritan's  failure  to  consecrate  the  ma- 
terial universe  is  due  to  his  loss  of  the  sacramental 
principle.  He  divorces  what  God  has  joined  together, 
the  material  and  the  spiritual,  the  body  and  the  soul. 
This  utterly  false  spirituality  has  no  warrant  in  the  Bible, 
and  no  justification  in  the  Christian  religion.  For  the 
Bible  teaches  the  consecration  of  art  and  craft  and  labour 
to  God  in  a  vocational  industry.     "And  the  Lord  spake 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  233 

unto  Moses,  saying,  See  I  have  called  by  name  Bezal- 
eel.  .  .  and  have  filled  him  w^ith  the  Spirit  of  God, 
in  w^isdom  and  in  understanding  and  in  knowledge,  and 
in  all  manner  of  workmanship,  to  devise  cunning  works, 
to  work  in  gold  and  in  silver  and  in  brass,  and  in  cutting 
of  stones  for  setting,  and  in  carving  of  wood  to  work 
in  all  manner  of  workmanship"  (Exodus  xxxi.  2). 
While  the  consecration  of  all  honest  labour  into  which 
we  put  our  heart  as  an  acceptable  sacrifice  to  God  is  pro- 
claimed in  these  words :  "They  will  maintain  the  fabric 
of  the  world :  and  in  the  handiwork  of  their  craft  is  their 
prayer"   (Ecclus.  xxxviii.  34). 

The  same  Sectionalism  may  be  observed  among  a  sec- 
tion of  clergy  who  call  themselves  Catholic,  but  have 
little  right  to  such  a  noble  name.  For  they  preach  a 
merely  "sanctuary"  religion  of  Confession  and  Mass 
entirely  dissociated  from  the  social  and  economic  life  of 
the  people.  But  to  dissociate  sacraments  and  sacrifice 
and  worship  from  the  social  and  economic  life  of  the 
people  is  to  pervert  worship  by  divorcing  what  God  has 
joined  together.  The  Sacraments  are  essentially  social, 
the  action  of  the  Divine  Fellowship  of  God  and  man  in 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church.  A  man  confesses  to  his 
priest  because  his  sins  are  not  a  matter  between  his 
soul  and  God  alone,  but  by  them  he  has  injured  the 
Brotherhood  of  the  Baptized,  the  Divine  Fellowship,  the 
body  of  Christ.  The  priest  judges  his  penitence  and 
absolves  him  in  God's  name,  because  he  is  set  apart  by 
God  for  this  function  in  the  life  of  the  Fellowship.  The 
whole  Body  of  the  Church  is  a  priestly  body,  the  Body 
of  our  great  High  Priest,  who  has  ordained  the  minis- 
terial priesthood  to  fulfil  this  function  of  the  body,  to 
restore  the  penitent  to  full  communion  in  the  Divine 
Fellowship. 


234  THE  Kn^GDOM  OF  GOD 

The  priest  offers  the  Holy  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  because 
God  in  the  Fellowship  has  set  him  apart  to  fulfil  this 
function  of  the  Body.  His  action  is  not  the  private  act 
of  an  individual,  but  the  corporate  action  of  the  Fellow- 
ship. In  the  Mass  he  does  not  merely  offer  the  sinless 
humanity  of  Christ  to  the  Father  in  isolation  from  the 
faithful.  This  would  be  to  offer  the  Head  without  the 
Body.  At  every  mass  Christ  is  offered  in  all  the  fulness 
of  redeemed  Humanity.  The  whole  material  universe 
which  He  created  and  which  only  consists  (or  holds  to- 
gether) in  Him,  is  represented  by  the  bread  and  wine  and 
water:  the  whole  human  race,  for  whom  He  died,  in 
whom  He  lives,  are  represented  by  the  little  band  of 
faithful  who  have  responded  to  His  call,  and  whom  He 
has  incorporated  by  Holy  Baptism  into  His  Divine  Hu- 
manity, to  be  His  body  through  whom  He  may  work 
out  the  redemption  of  the  world.  They  labour  for  Him. 
He  works  in  them.  They  work  and  suffer  and  witness 
for  Him  in  home  and  office,  mill  and  mine,  throughout 
the  week  ;  and  on  the  Lord's  day  they  bring  their  offering, 
all  that  they  have  said  and  done,  every  effort  of  honest 
work,  all  that  they  have  done  or  suffered,  they  bring 
their  sacrifice  of  service  to  Christ  that  He  may  cleanse 
it,  and  make  it  His  own,  and  offer  it  to  the  Father.  The 
sacrifice  of  Christ  which  redeemed  the  world  was  the 
entire  consecration  of  His  human  nature  to  the  service 
of  God  the  Father  in  the  task  of  establishing  God's 
Kingdom  on  earth.  He  offered  throughout  His  life  the 
perfect  response  of  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  of  heart  and 
mind  and  will  to  the  Will  of  God  the  Father.  This  is 
what  He  still  offers  in  every  Eucharist.  But  now,  His 
sacred  humanity  has  won  a  vast  extension.  For  every 
soul  baptized  into  the  Church  becomes  a  member  of 
Christ,  a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature,  and  a  part  of 


A^TD  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  235 

His  living  body,  the  Church.  In  these,  His  members, 
Christ  penetrates  into  every  home  and  factory,  mine  and 
mill.  In  them  He  offers  Himself  to  the  Father  for  His 
service.  Through  them  He  ceaselessly  witnesses  for 
righteousness  and  justice.  Through  them  He  labours  for 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom.  It  is  tliis  Body  of  Christ, 
consecrated  men  and  women  whom  He  has  incorporated 
body  and  soul  into  His  Divine  Humanity  in  the  Fellow- 
ship of  the  Catholic  Church,  that  our  great  High  Priest 
offers  to  the  Father  in  every  Eucharist. 

As  surely  as  the  bread  and  wine  become  the  most  holv 
Body  and  the  most  precious  Blood  of  Christ,  and  also 
by  devout  communion  become  the  body  and  blood  of  the 
Christian,  so  surely  does  Christ  offer  Himself  in  all  the 
fulness  of  redeemed  humanity,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
Church  which  is  His  Body,  to  the  Father.  'T  in  them, 
and  Thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  perfected  into  one." 

Now  to  isolate  one  aspect  of  the  holy  sacrifice  from 
the  other,  to  separate  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  in 
the  Blessed  Sacrament  from  the  members  of  Christ  in 
the  Church ;  to  adore  Him  in  the  tabernacle  on  the  Altar 
and  to  fail  to  recognize  Him  in  the  starving  child  in  the 
slums,  in  whom  He  dwells,  whose  body  Fle  has  conse- 
crated to  be  His  tabernacle,  the  shrine  of  Diety,  where 
God  delights  to  dwell ;  to  find  Christ  in  the  Sanctuary 
and  to  miss  Him  in  the  workshop,  is  that  spirit  of  sec- 
tionalism or  schism  which  makes  so  much  nominal  Cath- 
olicism futile  and  worthless.  The  only  true  Catholicism 
claims  the  whole  life  of  every  man  for  God,  body,  soul 
and  spirit,  in  home  and  school,  in  factory,  mine,  and 
workshop.  Therefore  it  must  raise  an  unceasing  protest 
against  an  unchristian  organization  of  commerce  and 
industry,  which  ignores  God,  and  destroys  His  image 
in  man. 


236  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD 

Why  is  so  much  noble  and  courageous  spiritual  effort 
by  our  parish  priests  utterly  wasted?  Why  are  they 
often  heartbroken  at  the  spiritual  apathy  of  their  flock? 
Is  it  not  because  their  efforts  are  misdirected,  and  because 
that  in  tolerating  an  unchristian  organization  of  indus- 
try they  are  shirking  the  real  battle  with  evil.  They  send 
their  children  out  to  fight  a  foe  whom  they  have  never 
fought  themselves.  The  boy  and  girl  at  fourteen  years 
of  age,  with  the  glow  of  their  confirmation  fresh  upon 
them,  are  sent  out  to  spend  the  greater  part  of  their  daily 
life  in  an  atmosphere  of  materialism  from  which  every 
spiritual  value  has  been  eliminated.  This  godless,  soul- 
less, inhuman,  impersonal,  mechanical  system  of  indus- 
try bleeds  them  white  of  all  true  vitality  by  exhausting 
toil.  It  destroys  their  sense  of  beauty  to  which  God 
would  appeal  in  His  revelation  of  Himself.  It  disin- 
tegrates the  family.  It  has  destroyed  home  life.  It 
lowers  every  high  ideal.  It  deadens  every  activity  of  the 
soul.  It  destroys  every  spiritual  value.  Boy  after  boy 
comes  back  to  his  friend  wounded  and  bleeding  from  his 
first  brave  battle  to  preserve  his  honour  and  integrity  and 
truthfulness  in  business  with  the  bitter  cry,  "It  is  impos- 
sible to  be  a  Christian  in  business." 

We  do  not  forget  the  noble  efforts  of  many  business 
men  to  sanctify  this  system.  But  it  is  impossible  really 
to  sanctify  what  is  wrong  in  principle,  and  an  economic 
based  solely  on  the  acquisitive  instinct  and  the  unre- 
strained selfishness  of  the  individual  cannot  be  made  to 
serve  God's  purpose. 

So  we  say  to  our  brethren  in  the  ministry:  "Why  do 
you  complain  of  apathy  and  indifference  when  you  toler- 
ate a  materialistic  organization  of  industry  which  stifles 
the  souls  of  men  ?  Why  don't  you  issue  forth  from  the 
sanctuary,  and  carry  your  Gospel  of  Divine  Humanity 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  237 

into  the  workshop  where  the  battle  is  being  fought  ?  You 
are  right  in  believing  that  in  the  Catholic  Faith  is  the 
only  hope  for  the  redemption  of  mankind.  But  you  are 
wrong  in  narrowing  your  Catholicism  to  the  sanctuary 
and  the  home.  No  religion  is  catholic  which  does  not 
claim  the  whole  of  the  life  of  every  man  and  of  all 
mankind — domestic,  industrial,  commercial,  national, 
international,  and  ecclesiastical  for  God :  and  the  fu- 
ture as  well  as  the  past.  It  is  not  enough  to  grope  about 
with  canonists  and  antiquarians  among  the  grave-clothes 
of  the  past,  with  a  merely  backward  look,  as  though 
the  Holy  Spirit  had  left  the  Church  some  centuries  ago. 
We  must  try  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  the  future.  We 
must  change  the  Catholicism  of  the  Tombs  for  the 
Catholicism  of  the  Mountain-tops,  with  its  world-wide 
vision,  and  a  heart  on  fire  with  missionary  zeal  and  social 
enthusiasm. 

3.  Selfishness. 

We  may  note  in  every  department  of  life  the  interac- 
tion of  two  principles  which  modify  one  another — in  our 
method  of  knowledge,  the  intellectual  and  mystical,  the 
knowledge  of  the  head  and  of  the  heart,  in  our  religious 
conceptions,  the  reaction  of  the  ideal  and  the  practical, 
and  in  our  political  theory  the  reaction  of  the  individual 
and  society.  Human  life  seems  best  symbolized  by  an 
ellipse  with  two  foci,  and  best  interpreted  by  the  swing  of 
the  pendulum  between  these  two  points  of  the  individ- 
ual and  the  social  aspects  of  life.  Ideas  undoubtedly 
rule  the  world,  but  the  world  reacts  on  and  modifies  the 
ideas.  The  Church  starts  out  to  convert  the  world :  the 
world  largely  succeeds  in  converting  the  Church.  Man 
invents  machinery  to  serve  him  in  his  work,  and 
awakens  to  find  himself  the  slave  of  his  machine.    There 


238  THE  KII^GDOM  OF  GOD 

is  then  an  incessant  action  and  reaction  of  spirit  and 
matter,  of  body  and  soul,  of  religious  and  philosophic 
ideas  on  the  economic  life,  and  of  economic  conditions 
on  religious  beliefs. 

So  when  at  the  Renaissance  ideas  proved  too  strong 
fof  the  crushing  intellectual  tyranny  of  the  Papacy,  the 
pendulum  of  the  human  mind  swung  from  the  rigid 
despotism  of  the  Papacy  to  the  equally  false  extreme 
of  the  unrestrained  individualism  of  Protestantism.  The 
atomic  conception  of  personality  which  treats  each  man 
as  a  separate,  independent,  isolated  individual,  formu- 
lated itself  in  such  expressions  as  that,  "My  religion  is 
between  myself  and  God  alone."  "I  don't  want  anyone 
between  my  soul  and  God."  "Religion  has  nothing  to  do 
with  economics  and  politics."  This  exaggerated  indi- 
vidualism is  of  course  in  clear  contradiction  to  the  Chris- 
tian Faith  which  is  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom,  the 
bond  of  a  Fellowship.  It  practically  denies  the  whole 
method  of  our  redemption.  Christ  redeems  man  from 
that  selfishness  which  is  tlie  essence  of  sin  by  incorporat- 
ing him  into  a  Brotherhood.  Man  can  only  save  his  life 
by  losing  it  in  a  fellowship  of  mutual  service. 

This  false  religious  individualism,  based  on  the  fallacy 
of  atomic  personality,  has  substituted  the  selfish  concep- 
tion of  a  merely  individual  salvation  for  the  corporate 
redemption,  which  Christ  came  to  preach ;  and  personal 
pietism  has  been  substituted  for  social  righteousness — 
'Ts  vour  soul  saved?"  for  "Thy  Kingdom  come  as  in 
heaven  so  on  earth."  This  religious  heresy  inevitably 
expresses  itself  in  an  economic  fallacy.  The  exaggerated 
individualism  of  Protestantism  shattered  the  unity  of 
Christendom,  and  left  the  vast  forces  of  economic  and 
social  life  uncontrolled  by  a  common  purpose.  In  the 
Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of  every  glaring  defect,  the  life 


AIS^D  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  239 

of  man  was  a  unity  and  a  community  knit  together  by 
the  bond  of  a  common  Faith.  The  same  reference  to 
God  which  inspired  his  personal  devotion,  also  controlled 
and  regulated  his  social  and  economic  relationships.  The 
town  or  village  was  a  community,  with  a  common  Faith, 
common  lands,  corporate  work  in  Guilds-  Industry  was 
vocational,  a  social  function  of  the  common  life.  Property 
rested  on  a  functional  basis,  some  useful  duty  done  for 
the  commonwealth.  But  with  the  break-up  of  Christen- 
dom, the  principle  of  disruption  which  shattered  its  re- 
ligious life  expressed  itself  in  economic  disintegration. 
The  spirit  which  said,  "My  religion  is  between  my  soul 
and  God  alone,"  was  translated  into  economic  terms, 
"A  man  can  do  what  he  likes  with  his  own."  As  religion 
ignored  brotherhood  in  egoistic  self-assertion  so  industry 
ceased  to  be  regarded  as  a  social  function,  and  took  as  its 
motive  the  unrestrained  accumulation  of  private  profit 
for  the  individual  in  entire  disregard  of  the  common- 
wealth. The  Church  came  to  be  regarded  as  an  aggre- 
gation of  pious  individuals  who  for  personal  benefit 
agreed  to  worship  together,  instead  of  a  family  and 
fellowship  bound  together  by  the  bond  of  a  common  par- 
taking of  the  life  of  God  in  Christ.  The  sacraments 
have  come  to  be  regarded  only  as  means  for  the 
strengthening  of  the  individual  soul  instead  of  the  cor- 
porate expression  of  that  fellowship  with  one  another 
based  on  fellowship  with  God  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
Thus  a  disintegrated  Christendom  leads  to  a  disinte- 
grated economic  and  social  life,  and  our  one  and  only 
hope  of  redemption  lies  in  the  return  of  Christ  to  reign 
over  us,  and  once  more  to  bind  us  together  in  a  Brother- 
hood of  the  Common  Life,  to  restore  the  unity  which 
selfishness  has  shattered. 


240  THE  KI:NGD0M  OF  GOD 

V.  The  Remedy. 

The  appalling  character  of  the  late  War  and  the  sordid 
nature  of  the  Peace  have  forced  thoughtful  men  to  con- 
sider whether  it  is  possible  to  redeem  an  economic  system 
based  on  the  unrestrained  selfishness  of  the  individual, 
under  which  the  labourer  has  lost  his  personal  value  and 
become  mere  mechanical  force,  and  industry  has  lost  its 
divine  purpose  as  communal  service  and  sacrifice,  and 
become  slavery.  For  the  essence  of  slavery  is  to  use 
man  as  an  instrument  for  the  ends  of  other  men  when 
God  created  him  as  an  end  in  himself.  The  unrestrained 
competition  of  individualism  leads  inevitably  to  the  sui- 
cide of  the  human  race  in  a  world-wide  war.  A  collecti- 
vism which  ignores  the  freedom  of  the  individual  kills 
initiative  and  enterprise,  degenerates  into  bureaucracy, 
and  perishes  in  stagnation.  The  hope  of  redemption  lies 
in  the  threefold  reference  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  by  which 
both  the  individual  and  corporate  life  while  they  react 
on  one  another  are  harmonized  and  kept  healthy  by 
being  brought  into  relationship  with  God.  As  against 
the  depersonalization  and  demoralization  of  human  life 
and  values  which  inevitably  occurs  when  man  is  disso- 
ciated from  God,  we  believe  that  the  redemption  of  man 
can  only  come  by  a  return  to  God  who  created  him  for 
Himself,  made  him  in  His  own  image,  whose  love  for 
him  gives  him  his  real  value,  and  only  in  communion  with 
whom  can  those  human  values  be  preserved. 

Now  this  threefold  reference  of  the  individual  to  the 
corporate  life,  and  of  both  to  God,  is  laid  down  by  our 
Lord  as  the  basis  of  the  Christian  religion.  "Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  mind  and 
soul  and  strength,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  And 
it  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  Athanasian  Creed 
we  have  the  rich  development  of  this  threefold  reference, 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  241 

and  find  the  true  principles  of  human  society  enshrined 
in  the  very  nature  of  God  the  ever-blessed  Trinity,  which 
gives  to  our  socialism  its  rock-like  spiritual  foundation. 
Our  Lord's  analysis  of  human  nature,  which  seems  to 
us  final  and  absolute  as  the  basis  of  social  philosophy, 
may  be  svnnmed  up  in  three  propositions  :  ( i )  That  the 
individual  is  of  infinite  and  priceless  value,  (2)  That 
he  can  only  realize  himself  by  self-sacrifice;  can  only 
save  his  life  by  losing  it  in  a  larger  synthesis  in  service 
for  the  commonwealth.  (3)  That  this  realization  of  the 
individual  in  the  corporate  life  of  fellowship  can  only 
be  harmonized  by  the  reference  of  both  individual  and 
corporate  life  to  God  and  to  His  Will. 

This  is  the  image  of  God  in  man.  The  doctrine  of 
tlie  Ever  Blessed  Trinity  preserves  Individuality  in  Fel- 
lowship, "neither  confounding  the  Persons,  nor  dividing 
the  substance."  It  recognizes  a  functional  activity  of  the 
Fellowship — Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  each  stand- 
ing for  a  definite  activity,  and  all  co-operating  in  the 
work  of  each.  It  recognizes  an  ecjuality  of  status  which 
is  not  inconsistent  with  a  precedence  of  function.  The 
Son  is  "equal  to  the  Father  as  touching  his  Godhead,  and 
inferior  to  the  Father  as  touching  His  manhood."  In 
industry  this  preserves  the  differentiation  of  function 
essential  to  corporate  effort  in  authority,  management, 
direction,  and  planning  as  communal  functions,  and 
saves  them  from  becoming  a  caste  distinction.  The  union 
of  God  and  Man  in  the  Incarnation  of  the  eternal 
Son  of  God  when  interpreted  into  terms  of  industry 
secures  for  us  that  all  that  is  truly  human  shall  be 
regarded  as  really  divine.  It  saves  us  from  that  fatal 
schism  between  secular  and  sacred :  it  consecrates  indus- 
try to  be  a  holy  sacrifice :  it  humanizes  worship  to  be  a 
social  activity.     Through   Christ  it  preserves   in  every 


242  THE  KII^TGDOM  OF  GOD 

man  the  human  and  the  divine  in  the  unity  of  personality 
— "one,  not  by  the  conversion  of  the  Godhead  into  flesh," 
as  in  the  philosophy  of  Humanitarians  and  some  Mod- 
ernists, "but  by  the  taking  of  the  Manhood  into  God," 
as  in  the  Catholic  sacraments.  "One  altogether ;  not  by 
confusion  of  substance,  but  by  unity  of  Person.  For 
as  the  reasonable  soul  and  flesh  is  one  man,  so  God  and 
Man  is  one  Christ."  Here  is  the  eternal  protest  of  God 
and  His  Church  against  our  present  system,  which 
mangles  human  personality  by  scientific  abstractions : 
which  treats  a  Son  of  God  who  works  with  his 
hands  as  a  mere  "hand,"  a  supplier  of  labour-force, 
and  ignores  his  personality,  his  pride  in  work,  his  crea- 
tive impulse,  his  affections,  his  family  relationships,  his 
spiritual  character. 

Nor  would  I  surrender  one  word  of  the  damnatory 
clauses  if  only  the  Creed  be  translated  from  its  original 
purpose  of  a  defensive  philosophic  statement  of  the 
Faith,  and  given  its  social  significance.  Without  this 
Catholic  Faith  firmly  held,  which  bases  social  relationship 
on  Fellowship  with  God,  Society  cannot  be  saved.  With- 
out this  reference  of  all  ends  and  purposes  to  God's  Will 
and  to  the  absolute  values  of  Justice  and  Righteousness, 
human  values  cannot  be  preserved.  There  is  nothing 
wrong  in  damning  or  condemning,  if  you  damn  the  right 
things.  In  our  decadent  civilization  men  damn  the  wrong 
things.  But  Plutocracy  in  its  destruction  of  every  spirit- 
ual value,  in  its  trampling  on  personality  in  that  unres- 
trained competition  which  is  inevitably  plunging  the 
world  into  another  world-wide  war,  in  the  coarse  bru- 
tality which  blackens  and  blots  out  every  beauty  of 
nature  in  the  making  of  private  profits,  till  the  power 
to  appreciate  beauty  is  perishing  from  the  soul  of  our 
people,  this  system  which  destroys  the  true  life  of  our 


AND  THE  CHURCH  TO-DAY  243 

people  in  the  effort  to  get  a  living,  is  altogether  damnable. 
Is  is  not  just  because  the  Church  damns  the  wrong 
persons,  that  she  has  lost  influence  with  the  people? 
Fifty  years  ago  the  official  Church  launched  all  the 
thunders  of  the  Church  and  State  against  a  few  clergy 
who  wore  vestments ;  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Bish- 
ops, priests  were  actually  flung  into  prison  for  this 
supposed  offence,  while  the  officials  of  the  Church  were 
steadily  indifferent  to  social  righteousness  and  justice. 
If  the  Athanasian  Creed  be  given  a  social  interpretation 
its  damnatory  causes  are  much  needed  for  sweaters, 
profiteers,  and  for  those  international  financiers,  who 
have  called  into  existence  an  inhuman  power  which  they 
themselves  are  unable  to  control,  which  threatens  to 
kindle  the  everlasting  fires  of  greed  and  hostility  and 
hatred  and  incessant  war  among  men,  and  to  make  human 
life  a  hell  on  earth. 

The  application  of  the  Catholic  Faith  to  our  industrial 
and  economic  life  may  be  summed  up  in  the  three  words  : 
Faith,  Freedom  and  Fellowship.  Faith  in  God  and  man 
gives  the  spiritual  basis  of  social  life,  and  preserves 
human  values.  Freedom  secures  initiative,  creative 
enterprise,  and  the  full  expansion  of  Personality;  and 
Fellowship,  which  makes  industry  a  communal  effort 
for  the  commonwealth,  corrects  the  tendency  to  selfish- 
ness, which  is  the  very  essence  of  sin  and  creates  all 
those  priceless  ethical  values  of  Brotherhood,  which  are 
essential  to  the  founding  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  among 
men.  These  are  the  fundamental  spiritual  principles  of 
Guild  Socialism  which  translates  them  into  economic 
expression  under  such  terms  as  self-government  in  indus- 
try, national  ownership,  and  democratic  control ;  voca- 
tional direction  of  labour  and  functional  claims  to  prop- 
erty.    These  suggest  an  organization  of  industry  which 


244  THE  KIXGDOM  OF  GOD 

will  cultivate  those  co-operative  virtues  that  are  essen- 
tial to  brotherhood,  and  which  will  provide  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  our  Faith  may  find  its  full  social  and 
economic  expression. 

The  doom  of  a  Godless  civilization  is  sealed.  "Because 
that  knowing  God,  they  glorified  Him  not  as  God, 
neither  gave  thanks.  .  .  .  God  gave  them  up."  Because 
''they  exchanged  the  truth  of  God  for  a  lie,  and  wor- 
shipped and  served  the  creature  rather  than  the  Creator 
.  .  .  God  gave  them  up."  "Even  as  they  refused  to 
have  God  in  their  knowledge,  God  gave  them  up"  (Rom- 
ans i.  21 ).  Human  society  organized  apart  from  God 
is  swiftly  moving  to  the  suicide  of  the  human  race  in  a 
universal  war. 

We  believe  that  the  Church  in  her  Catholic  complex 
of  dogma,  discipline,  and  devotion,  in  her  social  principles 
of  faith,  freedom,  and  fellowship  has  the  only  secret  of 
man's  redemption  in  binding  men  together  into  a  living 
Fellovvship  with  God.  If  she  will  purge  herself  from 
worldliness,  idolatry,  and  selfishness  and  stake  her  life 
on  establishing  the  Kingdom  of  God  among  men;  if  she 
will  issue  forth  from  the  sanctuary  to  claim  for  Christ 
the  absolute  dominion  over  the  whole  life  of  man,  to 
enthrone  Him  as  King  over  our  social  relationships  and 
our  industrial  and  commercial  activities,  as  well  as  over 
our  individual  life;  if  she  will  concentrate  all  her  ener- 
gies at  vvhatever  cost  on  giving  social  and  economic 
expression  to  her  Faith,  then  Christ  will  return  to  reign 
over  us  and  "the  kingdom  of  the  world  will  become  the 
Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ." 


EPILOGUE 

BY 
G.  K.  CHESTERTON 


246  EPILOGUE 


EPILOGUE 

Last  night,  as  the  grey  twilight  deepened  into  darkness, 
a  weird  and  telepathic  conviction  came  to  me  that  some- 
body was  somewhere  at  that  moment  writing  down  these 
words:  "The  modern  world  is  no  longer  in  the  swad- 
dling-bands of  the  creeds ;  it  has  come  to  years  of  discre- 
tion and  claims  a  full  responsibility  for  its  own  thoughts 
and  actions" ;  or  words  to  that  effect.  This  conviction 
was  not  wholly  due  to  a  cold  and  creeping  shudder 
that  came  across  me ;  such  as  that  which  is  said  to  warn 
a  man  that  someone  steps  across  his  grave.  It  was 
indirectly  connected  with  a  conviction  closer  to  experi- 
ence; the  knowledge  that  somebody  does  write  that  sen- 
tence every  night  in  order,  that  it  may  appear  every 
morning  in  all  those  newspapers  which  pride  themselves 
on  giving  us  what  is  new.  But  there  is  something  much 
more  extraordinary  about  that  sentence  than  the  sugges- 
tion that  it  is  new ;  and  that  is  the  belated  realization 
that  came  to  me  that,  after  all,  it  is  true.  I  had  read 
it  some  nine  hundred  and  ninety  times  before  it  even 
occurred  to  me  that  this  could  be  the  case;  but  when  I 
read  it  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-first  time  I  realized 
suddenly  that,  even  in  a  world  of  so  much  seeming  waste, 
even  these  words  had  not  been  written  in  vain.  The 
phrase  is  much  more  true  than  the  writers  are  aware;  it 
is  true  in  a  sense  that  they  would  not  at  all  approve ;  and 
if  they  knew  how  true  it  was,  they  probably  would  not 
write  it.     I  confess  that  there  falls  on  me  a  sort  of  hush 


EPILOGUE  247 

of  awe,  and  almost  of  terror,  to  think  of  all  those 
thousands  of  journalists  simultaneously  writing  down 
something  that  is  perfectly  true,  even  without  knowing  it. 

In  a  simple  and  almost  sinister  sense  the  modern 
world  really  has  come  of  age.  That  modern  spirit  that 
had  birth  in  the  Renaissance,  its  boyhood  in  the  Protes- 
tant and  commercial  centuries,  and  its  first  manhood  amid 
the  machinery  of  the  industrial  revolution,  really  has 
been  going  long  enough  by  this  time  to  be  judged  on  its 
own  merits.  It  really  is  old  enough  to  take  the  respon- 
sibility for  its  own  actions.  It  really  is  old  enough  to 
answer  for  itself.  But  the  fact  may  perhaps  appear 
less  boisterously  exhilarant  when  we  consider  what  it 
has  to  answer  for,  and  what  its  actions  have  been. 

In  any  case,  however,  the  distinction  is  of  some  im- 
portance; because  those  who  make  this  suggestion  gen- 
erally also  make  suggestions  flatly  inconsistent  with  it. 
While  insisting  that  the  modern  man  can  do  anything 
he  likes,  because  it  happens  to  be  something  they  like, 
they  commonly  take  refuge  in  a  contrary  suggestion 
when  it  happens  to  be  something  they  do  not  like.  Any- 
thing which  is  wrong  with  the  world  is  attributed  to  the 
stringency  of  those  dogmatic  bonds  that  have  been  burst 
asunder,  or  the  vitality  of  those  superstitions  that  have 
been  finally  slain.  Now  it  is  obvious  that  these  philoso- 
phers cannot  have  it  both  ways.  If  it  be  true  that  emanci- 
pated man  has  made  a  new  and  wonderful  world  in  his 
own  image,  he  cannot  possibly  excuse  the  ugliness  of  the 
image  he  has  made,  as  due  to  his  devotion  to  the  idols 
he  has  deserted.  In  short,  if  he  is  responsible  for  his 
actions,  he  is  responsible  for  his  bad  actions ;  and  cannot 
put  the  blame  on  the  religion  from  which  he  broke  away 
in  order  to  act  at  all.  This  is  obvious  even  in  abstract 
logic,  and  much  more  vividly  obvious  when  we  come  to 


248  EPILOGUE 

concrete  facts.  We  may  like  or  dislike  modern  machin- 
ery; but  we  cannot  say  it  is  a  historical  fact  that  a 
modern  machine  was  modelled  on  a  torture-engine  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition.  We  may  like  or  dislike  a  hive  of 
workers  "living  in"  under  capitalist  conditions;  but  we 
cannot  say  it  is  a  historical  fact  that  those  who  arranged 
it  modelled  it,  with  devout  ardour,  on  a  mediseval  mon- 
astery. We  may  like  or  dislike  a  modern  colonial  war; 
but  we  cannot  assert  that  it  was  imposed  on  us  by  the 
Pope  like  a  Crusade;  we  may  like  or  dislike  the  Yellow 
Press,  but  we  cannot  pretend  that  it  is  one  of  the  false 
colours  flown  by  the  Scarlet  Woman.  Modern  man  is, 
as  his  admirers  say,  by  this  time  a  sufficiently  ancient 
man  to  have  done  a  good  many  things  on  his  own  account, 
without  the  slightest  consultation  with  his  mediaeval 
grandmother.  There  is  hardly  a  link  left  of  the  chains 
that  bound  him  to  the  pre-reformation  prison.  He  has 
come  out  of  prison  long  ago.  The  only  question  is  what 
has  come  out  of  prison ;  and  whether  some  perverse  per- 
sons have  not  been  tempted  to  prefer  the  prison  to  the 
prisoner. 

In  trying  to  judge  this  fairly,  it  may  be  well  to  begin 
even  with  the  simplest  and  most  self-evident  proviso; 
that  this  normal  question  concerns  the  mass  of  mankind. 
It  would  be  as  absurd  to  talk  as  if  all  mediaeval  men  were 
as  wise  and  happy  as  the  saints,  as  it  would  be  to  talk  as 
if  all  the  modern  men  were  as  stupid  and  squalid  as  the 
millionaires.  Even  to  the  chance  examples  already 
chosen  the  application  of  this  popular  test  holds  good. 
If  we  were  simply  comparing  the  machinery  of  the 
Industrial  Revolution  with  the  machinery  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, most  of  us  would  prefer  even  a  threshing-machine 
to  a  thumb-screw.  But  most  men,  even  in  the  last  and 
Avorst    days    of    the    Inquisition,    went   to    their    graves 


EPILOGUE  249 

without  knowing  any  more  about  the  thumb-screw  than 
most  American  citizens  know  about  the  Third  Degree, 
and  much  less  than  they  know  about  the  ceremonial  of 
burning  negroes  alive.  On  the  other  hand,  no  man  can 
go  to  his  grave,  or  go  to  his  shop  or  his  office,  without 
knowing  all  about  the  good  or  evil  of  modern  machinery. 
We  can  therefore,  truly  ask  what  the  modern  machinery 
has  done  with  the  mass  of  men;  we  might  almost  put  it 
in  the  form  of  asking  how  it  has  manufactured  the  mass 
of  men.  And  that  comparison,  though  full  of  complex- 
ities like  all  historical  things,  is  capable  of  a  certain  large 
simplification.  The  modern  change  found  the  mass  of 
men  living  on  the  land,  and  it  turned  them  out  on  to  the 
road.  It  is  quite  true  that  they  were  originally  called 
slaves  on  the  land  and  were  later  called  free  men  on 
the  road ;  and  we  will  give  all  due  importance  to  such 
names.  The  road  may  be  a  symbol  of  liberty  and  the 
furrow  of  slavery;  but  the  object  here  is  to  sum  up  the 
realities  that  were  so  symbolized.  The  point  is  that  the 
modern  spirit,  as  such,  certainly  did  not  tend  to  make 
the  serf  in  the  field  the  master  of  the  field ;  but  only  to 
make  him  the  master  of  the  feet  with  which  he  walked 
in  his  freedom  along  the  king's  highway.  He  could 
only  take  his  chance  of  selling  his  labour  to  this  man 
or  that;  and  I  do  not  undervalue  the  fact  that  it  was  in 
form  a  free  contract,  even  when  it  was  in  fact  a  leonine 
contract.  But  it  certainly  is  the  fact  that  his  economic 
position  as  a  modern  wage-earner  is  less  secure  even  than 
his  position  when  he  was  a  feudal  serf,  and  far  less 
dignified  than  when  he  had  the  luck  to  be  a  free  guilds- 
man.  If  I  say  that  there  is  at  least  a  doubt,  touching 
the  mass  of  men,  whether  their  lot  has  been  improved  at 
all  by  the  vast  rational  revolution  of  the  last  four 
hundred   years,   I   am   deliberately   adopting   a   tone   of 


250  EPILOGUE 

restraint  and  even  of  understatement.  For  I  wish  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  all  people  who  think,  and  not 
merely  our  own  school  of  thinkers,  have  by  this  time 
reached  that  degree  of  doubt.  Nobody  is  certain  that 
Capitalism  has  been  a  success ;  nobody  is  certain  that 
Industrialism  can  solve  its  own  problems;  nobody  is 
certain  that  these  problems  were  not  solved  better  in  the 
ages  of  faith.  The  revolution  has  revolved ;  the  wheel 
has  come  full  circle ;  the  world  has  run  its  own  course. 
And  the  world  itself  is  doubtful  of  its  goal.  The  world 
itself  has  lost  its  way.  There  is  in  it  a  doubt  far  deeper 
than  what  is  commonly  called  religious  doubt.  It  might 
be  called  irreligious  doubt;  or  a  doubt  about  the  ideal 
wisdom  even  or  irreligion.  The  Church,  being  an  object 
of  faith,  is  in  some  sense  naturally  an  object  of  doubt. 
But  modern  men  are  not  merely  in  doubt  about  what 
they  believe,  but  about  what  they  know.  They  are  not 
merely  questioning  what  they  are  told  to  do;  they  are 
questioning  what  they  have  done.  What  they  have  done 
is  to  destroy  charity  for  the  sake  of  competition,  and 
then  to  turn  their  own  competition  into  monopoly.  What 
they  have  done  is  to  turn  both  peasants  and  guildsmen 
into  the  employed,  and  then  turn  these  into  the  unem- 
ployed. They  trampled  on  a  hundred  humanities  of 
piety  and  pity  in  order  to  rush  after  Free  Trade;  and 
their  Free  Trade  has  been  so  free  that  it  has  brought 
them  within  a  stride  of  the  Servile  State.  They  gave 
up  their  shrines  and  their  sacred  hostels  to  the  pleasure 
of  an  aristocracy,  only  to  find  that  their  aristocracy  no 
longer  consisted  of  aristocrats,  or  even  of  gentlemen. 
They  have  laid  the  world  waste  with  the  dreariest  and 
most  abject  atheism,  only  to  jfind  that  their  very  atheism 
has  cleared  a  space  for  the  return  of  the  most  fantastic 
superstitions  of  crystals  and  mascots.     They  have  built 


EPILOGUE  251 

a  city  of  houses  only  notable  for  the  size  of  the  ground- 
rent  and  the  smallness  of  the  ground-plan;  a  city  of 
whose  wealth  and  poverty  they  are  alike  ashamed ;  a  city 
from  which  they  themselves  flee  into  the  country,  and 
which  they  themselves  cannot  prevent  from  crawling 
outwards  into  the  country  to  pursue  them.  But  upon 
all  these  things  the  modern  man  looks  doubtfully  and 
with  a  double  mind;  for  they  are  the  fulfilments  of  his 
own  doctrines  of  science  and  free  thought;  and  it  would 
be  strange  if  some  broken  and  half -forgotten  sentence 
did  not  sometimes  begin  to  form  itself  in  his  mind. 
"Unless  the  Lord  built     .     .     ." 

To  the  modern  man  who  has  reached  this  degree  of 
real  doubt,  truer  and  more  terrible  than  the  cheap  riddles 
of  the  Bible-smasher,  the  essays  of  this  book  are  ad- 
dressed. It  would  be,  indeed,  unwise  to  end  it  in  a  tone 
which  denies  that  his  doubt  is  a  real  doubt;  that  is,  a 
doubt  that  cuts  both  ways.  He  may  justly  claim  much 
that  is  valuable  in  the  modern  world;  nor  need  he  fear, 
as  I  think  he  sometimes  does,  that  its  critics  propose 
merely  an  artificial  and  antiquarian  reconstruction  of  the 
mediaeval  world.  For,  indeed,  those  who  understand 
the  Catholic  tradition  of  Christianity  are  not  offering  a 
Church  which  is  exclusively  at  issue  with  modern  things, 
or  even  one  that  was  exclusively  expressed  in  mediaeval 
things.  The  point  is  not  so  much  that  that  age  was  rela- 
tively right  while  this  age  is  relatively  wrong;  it  is 
rather  that  the  Church  was  relatively  right  when  all  ages 
were  relatively  wrong.  Even  if  the  modern  man's  doubt 
goes  no  farther  than  balancing  sweating  against  serfdom, 
or  swindling  financiers  against  robber  barons,  it  will 
imply  the  need  of  some  third  thing,  some  authority 
above  the  ages,  to  hold  the  balance.  History  has  pro- 
duced only  one  thing  that  can  even  claim  to  hold  it. 


252  EPILOGUE 

When  the  Christian  apostle  declared  that  he  died 
daily,  he  told  all  the  truth  there  was  in  what  was  told  us,, 
in  our  youth,  to  the  effect  that  the  Church  was  dying. 
If  the  saint  had  died  every  day,  the  Church  has  died  in 
every  century.  Many  said  the  Church  was  dying  when 
Julian  proclaimed  from  the  Imperial  throne  the  worship 
of  Apollo.  Many  would  have  said  again,  after  the  first 
triumphs  of  many  oriental  heresies,  that  the  Church  was 
dying;  and  in  this  sense  they  would  have  been  right. 
The  Church  was  dying;  but  the  worship  of  Apollo  was 
dead.  Many  would  have  said  it  when  Calvinism  was 
overshadowing  province  after  province,  and  rightly;  the 
Church  was  dying,  but  the  oriental  heresies  were  dead. 
When  the  French  Revolution  had  made  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  it  was  quite  obvious  to  every  clear- 
sighted person  that  Christianity  had  come  to  an  end. 
The  Church  was  certainly  dying;  but  Calvinism  was 
dead.  The  Christian  religion  has  died  daily;  its  enemies 
have  only  died.  And  what  we  see  before  us  to-day  is 
not  a  mere  fashion  of  the  praise  of  one  century  over 
another;  but  at  most  a  rather  unique  illustration  of  the 
fact  that  the  world  fares  worse  without  that  religion 
than  with  it.  The  Church  is  dying  as  usual;  but  the 
modern  world  is  dead;  and  cannot  be  raised  save  in  the 
fashion  of  Lazarus. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  265  223    6 


SOMTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

UOS  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


i 


!i 


>  !  !  !  i 


;i  i! 


